The following are copies of loose handwritten pages found in the front of a very old ledger in the Sharon Lutheran Church in Bessemer, MI, USA. The pages record births and baptisms of children born to members of the church from 1896-04-13 through 1899-07-07. After these pages, births were recorded in the ledger. Most of the births are to members from Bessemer, MI, but other locations include Wakefield, Ironwood, Marenisco, Choat, Robinson, Thomaston, and Ramsay, MI and Hurley, Tomahawk, Gile, Iron Belt, Phillips, and Lac du Flambeau, WI. The information is recorded in Swedish and includes the name of the child, date of birth, date of baptism, location, parents' names, and names of witnesses to the baptism. Not all of these items are included in every entry.
No searchable index to these data is available, but I'm thinking about it.
Adobe Acrobat will provide access to these images and allows for zooming and moving about to examine the data as clearly as possible. If you don't already have it, the Acrobat reader may be downloaded free from the Adobe website.
Pick a page from the menu at left and enjoy. PLEASE let me know any comments or questions you have.
Norm "Pono" Sandin
kapono@maui.net
POB 1602
Kihei, HI 96753
pono@sandinfamily.com