St. Boniface Catholic Church
402 Munster, Germantown, Illinois 62245
http://www.stbonifacechurch.net/
Pastor: Father Jim Buerster, V. F.
Office Administrator: Melinda Knobeloch

This listing of the St. Boniface burial records begins in 1839 although the congregation of St. Boniface Catholic Church dates to 1833. This is probably due to the fact that the church was first served on an alternating two-week regular basis by Father Gaspar Ostlangenberg in response to the congregation’s request for a permanent priest in 1839. In that same year, Father J. Henry Fortmann was assigned as their permanent pastor. These details were gathered from the booklet “St. Boniface Church, A Pictorial History 1856 – 2006.” Their website above will also eventually provide historical data. The email addresses of the church secretary and pastor are provided on their website. They were both very helpful and cooperative in assisting with this project. A heartfelt thank you to both of them!

This listing complements the cemetery listing and will probably include many early burials not listed in the cemetery. The original cemetery was located north of its present location. The authorities moved the cemetery to the south edge of town in 1850 after 2 people, who died of cholera, were buried in the old cemetery. The cemetery had been located north of the present stone church building which was built in 1856. This location was deemed too close for sanitary reasons and thus the cemetery was moved.

The church burial records were transcribed from photocopies of the microfilmed original records. The majority of the translations were completed in 2007 with some updates in 2008 using the original church records to supplement the poor quality and/or missing parts of the microfilm. These records are now online and extend beyond 1930 at http://www.familysearch.org so if there is a question about a record it can be viewed online for resolving the issue or looking up a more recent burial. Most of these records are written in Latin and were translated in good faith. The majority of the pastors used many abbreviations and wrote ages as circa or “about.” The database ages are written without the “about.”  Note that ages and dates may differ between the cemetery and burial lists. Also note that there were no burial records found for March through December 1846 in the microfilm.

Some of the priests were, in a somewhat chronological, order:

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