Rehna, Germany, Marriages, 1876-1920

About this collection

This collection contains marriage records from the German department of Rehna covering the years 1876 up to and including 1920. In the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a "department" is a subdivision within an administrative district. The city of Rehna is situated in the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and is centrally located in Nordwestmecklenburg about 15 miles from Lübeck, from Schwerin and from the Baltic Sea coast. The collection includes records from the registry offices of Rehna, Carlow, Demern, Falkenhagen, Grambow, Lankow, Schlagsdorf and Utecht. However, the records for Utecht end before 1913.

Beginning on January 1, 1876, birth, marriage and death records in the former German Empire were created by local registry offices. The collected records are arranged chronologically and usually bound together in the form of yearbooks. These are collectively referred to as "civil registers." Occasionally, alphabetical directories of names were also created. While churches continued to keep traditional records, the State also mandated that the personal or marital status of the entire population be recorded.

What you can find in the records

Marriage records were created using preprinted forms that were filled in by hand by the registrar. Depending on the individual form or on the formulations used by the registrar, you may find:

• Certificate Number
• Marriage Date
• Groom: Occupation, Given Names, Last Name, Denomination, Birthdate, Birthplace, Residence as well as details about his parents and their place of residence
• Bride: Occupation, Given names, Last name, Denomination, Birthdate, Birthplace, Residence as well as details about her parents and their place of residence
• Witnesses
• Signatures

More about using this collection

Each document consists of two pages, which are displayed one after the other. Additional events from the life of the couple were sometimes recorded in the margins. These notes, sometimes referred to as "narration," can contain very useful information but they have not been indexed. As a result, information from the notes will not found via the search form.