This book covers the merchants guild in Belgard for over a hundred years. It is cataloged in the Szczecin Archives as beginning in 1698. However, several of the earliest pages flip back and forth from 1697 to 1678 to 1698 and then back again to 1675. Additionally, the catalog from Szczecin lists this guild, possibly very incorrectly, as belonging to the guild of smiths (Schmied in German or kowal in Polish). A translation of the word “Hake” shows it to include the forms Häker, Höker, and Haken; similar words include Krämer and Kleinhändler, or smaller merchants and shop owners.

• Amts Buch dem Löbliche Haken Gewerks (1698-1811)

Like many of the other documents found on our website, this is the first known copy of this book to be digitized, and it is certainly the first copy to be made available in any format for FREE! Our goal is to raise awareness for these secondary resources in an effort to bring hope to those researching villages devastated by record loss, especially where Standesamt or Kirchenbücher are no longer in existence. This guild book’ starting date predates the surviving duplicate church book by a hundred years.

This collection has not been transcribed yet.

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