Baptismal Notice for Anna Parli, 1840 (1)

This document comes from the family of Bill Dean, Margaret Dean's husband, who are the second great-grandchildren of Gottlieb and Anna Schuetz. It is a baptismal notice Anna Parli's sponsor wrote as keepsake of the baptismal day. Baptismal notices (Tauzettel, Taufbriefe, Taufhelgeli) have been an attribute of the baptismal ritual in the German lands since as early as 13^th century. Earliest surviving notices date back to the late 16^th century. Short notices with quotations from the Bible or folk blessings often accompanied baptismal gifts (often a little purse with money) from the sponsors, and served as a reminder to the parents of the baptized. The baptismal notices of the Schuetz family are decorated with block-printed ornaments executed black or blue ink and hand-colored with various degrees of precision.

The Parli family received this notice on the day of Anna's baptism in 1840, the year she was born. In 1863 Anna married Gottlieb Schuetz, who lived in the same Burgorf District in Canton Berne, Swtizerland. A son of soap manufacturers Hans (John) Schuetz and Magdalena Luthi, Gottlieb was born in 1838 in Canton Berne, Switzerland. Having lived in various places in the Burgdorf district between 1863 and 1868, they finally immigrated to Humboldt, Nebraska in 1870. Their daughter Maria (Mary) Schuetz, born in 1867 in Switzerland 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).

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