Copyright © 1982 McHenry County Illinois
Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 184, Crystal Lake, Illinois 60039-0184.
ISBN: 0-910741-00-X Library of Congress Catalog Number: 82-61687. The book
is out of print, but it has been microfilmed by the Family History Library and
acquired by many major genealogical libraries throughout the United States.
Preface
The parish of St. John the Baptist, Johnsburg, Illinois,
was organized in 1841 by a small group of newly-arrived German immigrants:
Nicolaus Frett, Nicolaus Adams, Jacob Schmitt, and Johann Baptist Muller.
The headstone of Nicolaus Frett, one of the first persons to be buried in St.
John's Cemetery, gives their exact date of arrival as August 2, 1841. They
were joined the following year by other immigrants from the same area of Germany
-- the Eifel region of the Rhineland.
The first priest to come upon what was then called
"Miller's Settlement" was the Rev. Fr. Fisher who had lost his way
returning from Wisconsin and was brought to the settlement by friendly Indians.
From 1842 until 1852 the parishioners of St. John's were served by visiting
priests sent from the diocesan headquarters at Vincennes, Indiana, to care for
the sacramental needs of Catholics in northern Illinois and Wisconsin.
With the appointment of Rev. T. B. U. Jacomet in 1852, St. John's acquired its
first resident pastor and the official record keeping of the church was begun.
It is evident from the Baptismal and Marriage records that
settlers from other communities without the services of a parish priest came to
St. John's for these sacraments. Names common to the "Irish
Prairie" are often seen. Also present are names from the German
settlement at Fremont Center and the settlements in Grant and Wauconda Townships
in western Lake County.
The following records represent a translation from the
Latin of the Baptismal, Marriage and Death registers from the earliest existing
parish registers in 1852 through October 1868 for St. John the Baptist Catholic
Church, Johnsburg, Illinois. Misspellings and omissions which occur throughout
the records are due to inconsistencies of the recording priests. In
many cases a name is spelled two or more different ways in the same entry.
Spellings of non-German names are particularly unconventional as these were
often spelled phonetically by the priest. In some cases the translators
have suggested a more correct version of a name by placing it in parentheses
after the questionable spelling. All material in parentheses is that of
the translators. Illegible words, letters, and numbers have been
underlined; blank lines have been used to indicate omissions.
The place name Rhenana Borussia which appears frequently in
the records has been explained by John Blocker of Hazel Crest, Illinois, as
follows: The expression means, in English, Rhenish Prussia. Borussia is the
ancient Latin-Germanic term for Prussia. Rhenana refers to the western or
Rhenish portion of Prussia, formerly known as the Rhineland and ruled by Prussia
after 1815.
KEY TO
ABBREVIATIONS
|
b
bap
b/o
bur
ca
c/o
|
born
baptized
brother of
buried
circa; about
child of
|
d
das
d/o
h/o
hrs
m
|
died
days
daughter of
husband of
hours
married
|
mos
sis/o
s/o
wit
w/o
yrs
|
months
sister of
son of
witness(es)
wife of
years
|
[Note: All umlauts have been eliminated
from record listings due to scanning problems. The reader should check all
possible variant spellings of a particular name when searching for an ancestor.
Example: Miller, Muller, Mueller; Benoelken, Bennoelken, Benolken, Bennolken,
Bennelken, Benoelkin, Benoken, Boenoelken, Bannelgen.]
It is also a good idea to simply look at every
page of the compilation so as not to overlook something of importance. For
this purpose we also provide these individual page links at the bottom of each
page.
(Baptisms to p. 49) [Pages 1-24]
[Pages 25-49]
(Confirmations, Marriages, Deaths) [Pages
51-68]
There are many cross references for names that
were spelled phonetically by the priest. This is particularly true of the
many Irish names that appear in the records.
This index has many large files that may take
up to one minute to load. Below you may choose the index for the surname
of interest.
