STRUCTURE AND NAVIGATION OF THE DATABASE

You can use the database either in German or in English.

COURTS EXAMINED: On the first level you can choose between the different courts examined in the two research projects.
TIME PERIODS: On the second level you can find either the time periods of the chosen courts or the lists of specific courts. Through choosing a court or examination time period you are led to the people.
PEOPLE: On the third level you find a list of all people who carried out one or more matrimonial proceedings in the court chosen and within the chosen period of time.
PROCEEDINGS: On the fourth level you find all of the court proceedings pertaining to the chosen married couple.
BASIC DATA: On the fifth level you find the basic data on the proceedings which the chosen married couple carried out.

NAVIGATION: For a better overview and easier navigation the upper section of the chosen page contains a navigation path. This furthermore allows the user to change back and forth between the various levels of the database.
INFOBUTTON: Background informations to the tables of lavel four and five you will find in specific Infobuttons in the upper right corner.

PEOPLE SEARCHES

By entering a letter in the search window a dropdown list appears offering the names of all available people with a name beginning with this letter. The search results show the names of wives through which you can subsequently reach the information about the married couple and the matrimonial proceedings.

The last names of the married people, which were often spelled differently from one court source to the next, were standardised and, when possible, adjusted to fit the modern day spelling of the name. Until 1783 the suffix “-in”, which was added to the surname of females and was always used in the sources, was retained. For the time period after 1783 we chose to use the names of the women without the suffix, even though the use of this suffix continued to be widespread until well into the 19th century.

Andrea Griesebner, translation Jennifer Blaak