St. Joseph Church

The WPA birth information was obtained from the WPA birth index books at the St. Joseph County Public Library and Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library. I went through the index and transcribed the index information for children born to a father with a “Hungarian”-looking name. I added a column called “Standardized Name”  which  gives a  common spelling for  a name. For example, the names Kovacs, Kovach, Kovatch, Kowatch, etc. would all have “Kovacs” in the Standardized Name column. In addition, gross spelling errors in the recorded name are compensated for in this column. Names unfamiliar to me were left as they appeared in the index books. There are many discrepancies in birth dates between the WPA index and church records for people I have transcribed. I don’t know how to account for this, or which record is correct in any given case (or if the error is mine).