Daily Ancestorgetauft
Getauft is German for "baptized"; in a church book it gives the date of the baptism, which often came a few days after the birth.
Getauft comes from taufen, to baptize, and the baptism itself is the Taufe. Until civil registration began in the 1870s, only the churches recorded births, so the baptism register is the main birth record for most German ancestors.
Many entries give both dates, geboren and getauft. When only the baptism date survives, the birth was shortly before it, but the two dates are not the same. The abbreviation is get., which is easy to confuse with gest. for died.
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How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "getauft." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/german/getauft. Last checked 2026-10-28.