understanding church records
medic12965	I have some church records from Vinje Telemark and have a few questions aboout them: 1. In the column "Faddernes name, occupation and residence" does faddernes mean godparents?? And why is there always 4 names listed?? There is always an "h:" included- are these names pertaining to the wife (hustru)? 2.In older church records, for example, ones I have from 1753, it states: Tallef Drotnings son Aanund. Then there is one word which I don't understand.....I'm not sure of the spelling but it looks like "Jestes" or "Testes" and is followed by usually 5 names. What is this word and it's meaning?? Are the people mentioned after it godparents?? because they seem to be names that are not related to the family as far as I know. I tried to upload the pages but was unsuccessful, sorry. Thanks, Ryan
Hopkins	Good information about the Norwegian church records can be found online - http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~norway/na20.html Many parishes (or the persons keeping the church books) had their own patterns of how they recorded information. Some used particular abbreviations repeatedly, symbols, etc. This become even more pronounced in the older records before the standardized forms were being used.
Jo Anne Sadler	Here is a dictionary I like to use for old records: http://home.online.no/~otjoerge/files/word.htm faddere - sponsor, christening, parents, godparents faddergave- present given to child by godfather or godmother at baptization /christening faddernes navne- godparent's name; name of the witnesses Generally, there were 5 godparents.