Hi all,For those of you who are doing genealogical work and haven't been following all of the various posts about Rene van Wijngaarden's fantastic ketubah, I wanted to share some general information about Western Sephardic ketubah registers. This is useful information even if you don't have any marriage contracts from your family, but wish you did, as it may help you locate some!Michael Waas noticed that Rene's family ketubah was not illuminated like the beautiful ones that Aron Sterk posted. That is because they come from a ketubah register, one of the great gifts from the past to genealogists working on Western Sephardim. :) Although today most people only have their personal copy of their ketubah and the congregation keeps no copy, in the 17th-early 19th centuries, Western Sephardic congregations often kept a second copy of ALL the marriage contracts for the marriages performed in their congregation called a ketubah register. I.e. if you have ancestors that were married in one of the congregations in London, Amsterdam, Suriname, Barbados, and a few others, the congregational records most likely contain a legal (non-illuminated) copy of your ancestor's marriage contract similar to the one Rene posted that was from the Amsterdam city archives. (This is also good news for historians like myself as we can track changes over time in the contracts.) They aren't as pretty as the illuminated copies, but even if you don't read Hebrew/Aramaic it is worth obtaining a copy of your family's marriage contract from the register books and getting someone to translate the crucial information for you. Here are some of the things you can learn from the ketubah besides the date of the wedding:1. The names of the fathers of the bride and groom2. If either of the couple had been married previously (even to each other, e.g. in Portugal in a Christian marriage)3. If the husband of the couple could write (and hence most likely read) Hebrew4. If the husband of the couple was literate in Spanish, Portuguese, etc. (based on the groom signature's handwriting)5. How the husband pronounced his name (if in roman alphabet)6. Who in the community was close to the family (the witnesses)7. How much money the bride and groom's family had and what they brought to the marriage8. If the parents of the bride and groom were alive when the couple got married9. If either of the couple was a convert.10. If the groom favored Spanish or Portuguese.11. Probably something else I have forgotten. :)If you have ancestors from Amsterdam, London, Suriname, or Barbados and want to know more about how to locate their marriage contracts, let me know in the comments field. :)