Family history research

Das Aufgebot in a church book is the banns: the notice, read from the pulpit on successive Sundays, that two people intend to marry, so that anyone who knew of an impediment could say so. Open a newspaper and the same word means something else twice over. Ein großes Aufgebot an Polizei is a heavy police presence, and das Aufgebot für die Weltmeisterschaft is the squad a coach has named. What joins the three is the verb behind them, aufbieten: to call people up in public, whether a couple before the parish, officers to a scene or players to a tournament. In a register, then, the word never means a crowd. And a genealogist who finds an Aufgebot with no wedding entry after it has found a marriage that was announced and may never have taken place.