Other Events and Attributes:

• Baptism: 16 Nov 1626, Hildburghausen, Hildburghausen, Thüringen, Germany

Notes:

From Wilbur Hanson Kalb:
Sorry about the delay but I had a lot of trouble with the third word of the second line of the 1626  burial entry of Christoph Thomæ’s baby girl.  At first I thought it was a mangle of a misspelling and a correction but a closer reading showed that it was actually a compound verb — and an unusual one.  It’s the combination of graef, the Dutch word for “grave”, and tauft, the German word for “baptize” = graeftauft, “baptized by the grave”.   I know infant mortality was very high in the 17th Century but I’ve never seen such a word before.  Sometimes a baby would die so fast that there was no time to fetch the pastor.  Sometimes the parents had had to perform an emergency baptism ; that was allowed by both Catholic and Protestant Churches in those days.  That’s why the parish registers are sprinkled with mentions of home baptisms throughout the centuries.  I’m guessing that the baby’s resurrection stopped her funeral and her father, being the local Diakonus, wasn’t taking any chances with her baptism.  Hence the following transcription and translation but, as you’ll see, in spite of the emergency, the daughter did not get a name
The German transcription :

16 [ November 1626, Donnerstag ] Hr. Christoph Thomæ Diaconi Tochter,
lein so greaftaūft [ not graeftaūft ] werd [ = wird ] begraben.

The English translation :

16 [ November 1626, Thursday ] Mr. Christoph Thomae Diaconus little
daughter, having been baptized by the grave, will be buried.

In the Gregorian Calendar, 16 November 1626 was 26 November 1626.