Dear Jane and Bill; Thanks for your concern and also for the adress of the Park Curator of the Saratoga Battle Park. I'll copy this to Mr. Howard Horne, who will look after this I am sure. I myself have nothing here anymore to fall back on, and although I still get many enquiries about Hessian soldiers, all I can do now is forward such enquiries to the mail list, hoping that someone will pick up on it. Mind you, the list seems to be slow at times to respond, and nobody seems to receive the PML service from Rootsweb which is such a fantastic source of information, and as long as I have the time and still get the PML information for free from Rootsweb, I will forward those interesting tidbits, which always will have the PML Search in the subject line. Thanks again Jane, the bright star shining from Florida's Gulf coast. thanks for all your help now and in the past. Yours John Helmut Merz, retired on Canada's shores of Lake Ontario. ----- Original Message ----- From: WMCURCI@aol.com Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 3:59 PM Subject: [HESSIAN] Regarding the American forces POW List at Battle of 1777 in Saratoga Dear John, it is so wonderful to hear from you and to hear about your upcoming trip. Do you recall when you were interested in a obtaining the following: Does the Park have a list of the POW's taken by the American forces at the Battle of 1777 in Saratoga? Can they email or US Mail the list? Bill and I have a friend <snip. Anyway, John, we asked him about such a list and he responded as follows: I hope this is still something you are interested in. Love to you and Emmi and Pauli and Family, Jane and Bill, too! wmcurci@aol.com Subj: Re: (no subject) Date: 5/16/2005 2:03:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: Steve_D_Thompson@nps.gov To: WMCURCI@aol.com Hi Jane, I don't know anyone there but I was able to look at their staff directory and the person most likely to know anything about such a list is the Park's Curator. Her information is: Christine Robinson PARK CURATOR 518 664-9821 x 221 Email: Christine_Robinson@nps.gov Most parks are currently understaffed; try calling her first, and if you get voice mail, rather than leave a message (she probably gets many), I'd send her an email. You certainly can tell her that you got her name from me. I think the question is simple, if I understand the letter below: Does the Park have a list of the POW's taken by the American forces at the Battle of 1777 in Saratoga? Can they email or US Mail the list? Hope this helps. Trust you and Bill are well. Steve Steve Thompson Special Park Uses/Lands Outer Banks Group 252 473-2111x121 Fax: 252 473-2595 E-mail: steve_d_thompson@nps.gov dirlamrob@juno.com writes: Subj:RE: [HESSIAN] Still Here Date:6/22/2004 4:30:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: dirlamrob@juno.com (ROBERT B DIRLAM) Reply-to: AMREV-HESSIANS-L@rootsweb.com To: AMREV-HESSIANS-L@rootsweb.com Thank you Mary Vogus Hoffman. At your suggestion, I contacted the Ranger at Saratoga National Historic Park, and he has replied with a very nice E mail. He searched for John Oderick Dirlam on all the Brunswick/Hesse-Hanau records, but did not find him. He also searched for spelling variations on the name but nothing plausible came up. He said that it is possible, however, that John Oderick Dirlam was a German soldier serving in the British army directly, and not with one of it's "Hessen" auxiliary units. There were hundreds of these Germans in the British ranks, and records of their names exist. However, because there is no compiled list of their names, nor an index.it's exceedingly difficult to locate an individual. The originals for these records are in London. I am very pleased with the Ranger's response, even if John Oderick Dirlam did not turn up on the Saratoga National Historic Park Brunswick/Hesse-Hanau records list. I will continue my search for John Oderick Dirlam's origins. ############