Every week a group of women volunteers show up at the diocesan Chancery offices where they proofread and digitize the baptismal, marriage and death records of each parish. They’ve had to master complex puzzles — they decipher tiny spidery writing, interpret words in foreign languages and sort out meaning from narrative description, instead of lists. They analyze loopy decorative script, correctly place pages that were entered out of order, locate and edit names that were skipped or spelled wrong and determine what date numbers like “3196” should be.
These are some of the challenges the “Wednesday Ladies,” whom they have been endearingly nicknamed, have faced as they ensure parish records are accurate. Currently six women volunteer in the diocesan archives: Ruth Larson, Gretchen Leisen, Eunice Sankey, Connie Viere, Reggie Mohs and Carol Mohs, many of whom are members of the St. Cloud Area Genealogists and have carefully researched their own family trees. This group of Wednesday Ladies brings a total of 90 years of researching diocesan records, developing processes to work around each obstacle they encounter.
Ruth was one of the original members of a SCAG subcommittee that requested permission from the diocese to protect, copy and digitize the oldest parish records, copies of which are housed in the basement of the Chancery.
She said, “Over the years our group has changed, but usually it is between six and eight, because we need room to spread out at the table. Louise Theisen, a SCAG member, was here from the beginning until 2017. Other women have joined, some for many years, others for only a few.”
When Ruth began working on the project in 1989, the only light in the basement came from small table lamps so the group dubbed their space the “catacombs” and brought their own lamps and lighted magnifying glasses to better read the old documents. Now they have bright overhead lights.
Deciphering puzzles
The original group started with records from 1855 to 1879, kept by Father Francis Pierz, Father Joseph Buh and Father Ignatius Tomazin.
“Father Pierz used tiny books, not even five by seven inches, and he wrote small. How could he write that little? Because he visited many missions, his entries included Native American names that had up to 23 letters!” Ruth said. “One baptismal name was for Chief Hole-In-The-Day’s child.”
“The priest of the Belle Prairie parish wrote in a lovely script but it was tiny and it wasn’t dark,” Gretchen recalled. “It contained many French names. … So I took it home and used my French dictionary. When I couldn’t figure some out, I reviewed the French-Canadian Heritage group’s list of French surnames. It was a struggle, but we clarified all the names.”
They came upon many idiosyncrasies in alphabets of several languages, such as vowels with umlauts and other diacritical markings. The Wednesday Ladies found genealogy translation guides of commonly used words to assist them in keeping track of the unique usages and twists in each language.
One concept they puzzled over in baptism records was a French word that they determined meant “the day before yesterday,” denoting the date a baby was born. They use a wide variety of dictionaries and other references.
Some priests kept their records in Latin. One of the women, Pat Hill, a group member for nearly 20 years, had studied Latin, so her knowledge helped them read parish records that were written as a narrative instead of as lists.
“At one parish, the priest was a native Polish speaker who wrote all the women’s last names with the feminine ‘-ska’ ending, instead of the male ‘-ski’ ending. For example, he listed a woman as a Towalska — now she’d be called Towalski. Though it’s an uncommon usage in Central Minnesota, the diocese told us to include it as it was written,” Gretchen said.
Future researchers will have to learn those little twists as well, or they’ll get confused when they can’t find their ancestors.
Ruth said, “We’ve learned to read Old German script — one was horrible with so many swirls and umlauts. And a double S looks like a B, and the letter F can look like an S. In some early records, if a name had a double letter (like ss or nn), the priest would write only one letter but draw a line above it to indicate a double letter.”
When the priest writing the records used an extra fine pen point that barely touched the paper or a pale ink, making the entries very hard to decipher, the Wednesday Ladies often pass the record around to get a consensus. They‘re very pleased when the scribe printed the letters instead using cursive handwriting — they have a better chance of getting it right.
Records for St. Mary’s Cathedral, Holy Angels and five other parishes were originally entered in the 1990s but had to be completely re-entered when software was switched, and the data couldn’t be transferred to the new program.
An orderly process
The process they use is to first enter the records into the computer in the order they are written in the original books. They then print, proof and make corrections and enter the updates on the digital record. Recent pages from parishes are placed in a separate box, which will be worked on when original records from all parishes are complete through 1990.
When they started, the diocese gave permission to release copies of the information up to 1930 (due to the 70-year law regarding confidentiality) to the Stearns History Museum. A completed alphabetical list is returned to the parishes. Each church keeps their own original records and continues to maintain them. Copies of current pages are sent to the Chancery.
If names or dates don’t match, they use MOMS, the Minnesota Official Marriage System, to clarify names that might be spelled wrong. The Minnesota Historical Society maintains a record of births through 1935 and deaths through about 2002.
Connie said, “I was looking for a person in baptismal records, but because I’d read his name on an earlier page, I saw that his mother’s name was misspelled. Luckily, this couple is on each page at least twice because they had many children. If I hadn’t found it, I’d need to look it up in one of those resources to spell it right or come as close as I could.”
By going through this process, they’re making digital records for future use. If something happens to a parish nowadays, like a fire, the diocese has a copy of accurate records, which can be made accessible to researchers, genealogists and others who need the information.
One of the rewards
Finding their ancestors or relatives is one of the most rewarding parts of doing this work.
Reggie said, “My grandmother had been retired for about 10 years and suddenly needed proof of her birth certificate. My mother used her baptismal record to prove that Grandma was born in 1901.”
“On very early records, there might be information about a birthplace, such as the actual village or diocese in another country. That’s something genealogists covet — and it’s otherwise very hard to find,” Gretchen added.
Ruth found such information in the German church records for her mother and dad. “When we went to Germany, we visited that village church basement archives and I saw the actual record. I wouldn’t have been able to go there had I not seen the note here of their village,” she said.
Getting a designation for a century farm is another use that requires research into family genealogy as well as land titles.
The Wednesday Ladies bring dedication and passion to this labor of love as they honor the past.
“We know we’re doing something good. Hopefully the people who’ve worked on this project will get points when they’re in heaven,” Carol added. “We’re not on a timeline, but we’re not sure we’ll be done in our lifetimes.”
Above photo: The “Wednesday Ladies,” Reggie Mohs, Connie Viere, Ruth Larson, Carol Mohs and Gretchen Leisen, gather at the St. Cloud Chancery offices. (Dianne Towalski/The Central Minnesota Catholic)
Hi Nikki,
This is a great article and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Just FYI, I actually dated someone when I lived in Los Angeles that was from Poland and it is still the tradition to use the ski for male last names and ska for female the last names. It seems strange to us to have children with different last names in the same family, but that was their tradition. So it wasn’t a mistake that the priest did that to birth records. Take care!