Imperial Document #3

[Chris Stewart]

Dated 1917...Can you guys tell me what this is?

[Bob Lembke]

Death Document

My poor bionic eyes are quite achy (no corneas, but replacement plastic implants), but I think we have a death certificate for a 19 year old Grenadier in the 1st MG Company of the 1st Guards Reserve Regiment. (Reserve regiments related to a historic Guards line regiment was not entitled to use all of the honorifics that the parent line regiment could trot out, I believe.)

Bob Lembke

[Rick Research]

It would help to be a BIT bigger and crop the margins. When handwriting is bad, it's better up close.

19 year old Grenadier in 1st MG Company of 1st Guard Reserve Regiment Illegible 1st name (or occupation?) Wilhelm ?Kleinrensing, Protestant, born in Heiderich, resident Marktstrasse 13, Duisberg-Heiderich, son of construction businessman Heinrich ? Kleinrensing and Helene née Schurmann (both deceased) was killed in the trenches near Lens at 420 PM 5th September 1916 by an artillery shot to the head, per his unit.

[Biro]

an artillery shot to the head?

Ouch.

A sad tale told on a nice document.

[Chris Stewart]

Rick,

I cut the document image in half and removed empty margins. Let me know if this helps a bit.

Top:

[Chris Stewart]

Bottom:

[Gerd Becker]

Chris,

I am not that good in Suetterlin. Here is something, that can maybe helpful in the future:

best regards,
Gerd

[Bob Lembke]

Transcription Aid

Gerd,

Thanks for the Suetterlin to Modern transcription aid. I just printed off a few copies to help me. I have a couple of such charts to help with that job. The best that I have is page 74 of a US book entitled A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering your Germanic Ancestors that a friend gave me, knowing I was trying to translate my father's and grandfather's Feldpost. The page has columns, left to right, of upper-case and then lower-case "Modern", "Fraktur", "Suetterlin", and "Kurrent", and then columns of three or four upper-case and lower-case examples each of some of the curious ways in which people really wrote things, often quite different from any of the standard or pure letter forms.

The book then has additional pages of diverse translation aids that I have found less useful, focused on reading old documents. (Sounds like I am trying to sell the book. I am not, save your pennies until I come out with my Flammenwerfer book next year.)

I have to figure out how to post a scan, make a good scan, and put it up on this thread. I am not up to speed on this yet, sorry.

Bob Lembke

[stogieman]

Artillery Shot....

... to the head? It actually states that? How bizarre!

[McCulloh]

"Wilhelm Kleinrensing" is what I read.

[McCulloh]

oops kind moderator, please delete"...