Ralph Baer wrote:
"Recently, Steve Hahn asked to have ViewMates #10441 and #10442 translated.
I did that and sent them to him. I could not understand one part of #10442
http://data.jewishgen.org/viewmate/ALL/viewmateview.asp?key=10442
The father of the child was described as follows "Jacub Hahn (zwei und
dreisig Jahre alt) lese: neun und dreisig Jahre alt" [Jacub Hahn
(32 years old) read: 39 years old].
I am confused as to why two ages are given for Jacub Hahn. "

=== I guess the explanation here is a very simple one: the official filling
in the form just wrote down what the person in front of him told him - or
rather, he wrote down what he thought this person was telling him or how he
understood what he was telling him ... probably he just mistook
"neununddreissig" for "zweiunddreissig" and corrected this afterwards. Same
goes for Jacub and Jacob - both are possible and sound quite similar.

"Also, can anyone explain what the word "lese" signifies here?
I thought that perhaps this birth record was stating that something
else read that he was 39, not the 32 that he stated, but then the word
should have been "liest"."

=== "lese" is the imperative form of "lesen " (to read) .... meaning that
what is written prior to that (in this case: zweiunddreissig) is wrong and
should be read as what follows (in this case: neununddreissig). I think this
is a very careful and diligent way of correcting mistakes - much better than
crossing through or overwriting, as we have seen it in other record... This
enables anyone later on to read what has been written before.

Daniel Simon Ludwigsburg - Germany <info@...>