Maria Schuetz's Baptismal Certificate

This is a baptismal certificate for Maria (Mary) Schuetz, the daughter of Bill Dean's second great-grandfather Gottlieb Schuetz. A son of soap manufacturers Hans (John) Schuetz and Magdalena Luthi, Gottlieb was born in 1838 in Canton Berne, Switzerland. He married Anna Parli who also came from Canton Berne, Switzerland in 1863 and immigrated to Humboldt, Nebraska in 1870. Maria was the third child in the family born on February 22, 1867 and started the Dean family line marrying German-born Dirk Sutorius in 1889. Sutorius' daughter Emma, born in 1890 married a recent emigrant from Germany (1908) Edo F. Harms in 1914. All three generations lived in Humboldt, Nebraska in close proximity with various relatives (Emma Sutorius's uncle John Schuetz lived right next door to her family according to the 1930 census).

Baptismal certificates in the mid-19^th century most probably served as a birth certificate, identifying parents (Eltern), witnesses of baptism (Zeugen) and date and place of birth down to the district (Amtsbezirk) and parish (Kirchgemeinde).

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