Nina, My thank you also. The answers are close. Harkeys everywhere are indebted to you. Even old wanting proof me is excited. I will start looking for the Hessen soldiers links. Kay At 04:27 PM 8/10/2002 -0400, you wrote: >As some of you know, I was in Germany last spring and included a side trip >to the Sterbfitz area. I had promised some information for the list, >which has been slow in coming together. Today I was on the phone with >Karl-Heinz Herche who has been kind enough to work with us and offer us >all the information he has in his data. (We also have information he is >interested in, so it's a mutual thing) The conversation also presented >some new information I did not yet have. The direct ancestor of >Karl-Heinz Herche is Hartmann Herche, younger brother of Johannes Jacob Herche. > >To begin with, it seems we do indeed have the correct ancestor, Johannes >Jacob Herche, b. Sterbfritz, 12 August 1708. His siblings are as follows: > >CONRAD HERCHE (Herrche, Herge) born August 23, 1657 in Sterbfritz, Hessen >- Nassau, Preußen, and died December 27, 1732 in Sterbfritz Hessen - >Nassau. He married EULALIA (PAUL - PAULI) PFAUL June 06, 1695 in >Sterbfritz, Hessen-Nassau, Preußen, Germany, daughter of HARTMANN PFAUL >and EVA MUTH. She was born March 17, 1675 in Sterbfritz, Hessen - Nassau. >More About CONRAD HERCHE: >Fact 1: August 23, 1657, Christened >More About CONRAD HERCHE and EULALIA PFAUL: >Marriage: June 06, 1695, Sterbfritz, Hessen-Nassau, Preußen, Germany > Children of CONRAD HERCHE and EULALIA PFAUL are: > i. BARBARA5 HERCHE1, b. August 15, 1696, Sterbfritz, Hessen - Nassau, > ii. ANNA MARIA HERCHE1, b. February 07, 1699, Sterbfritz, Hessen - Nassau1. > iii. MARGRETHA HERCHE1, b. February 01, 1702, Sterbfritz, Hessen - Nassau1. > iv. ELISABETHA HERCHE1, b. March 21, 1706, Sterbfritz, Hessen - Nassau1. > v. JOHANNES JACOB HERCHE1, b. August 12, 1708, Sterbfritz, Hessen - Nassau1. > vi. HARTMANN HERCHE1, b. March 20, 1711, Sterbfritz, Hessen - Nassau, > Preußen; d. May 02, 1775, Mottgers, Hessen1; m. CATHARINA > AILGET/EILGERT1, February 16, 17411; b. March 31, 1711, Schwarzenfels, > Hessen1; d. January 04, 1784, Mottgers, Hessen. >More About HARTMANN HERCHE and CATHARINA AILGET/EILGERT: >Marriage: February 16, 17411 > vii. EVA ELISABETH HERCHE1, b. November 08, 1713, Sterbfritz, Hessen - > Nassau, Preußen. >viii. ANNA HERCHE1, b. July 13, 1716, Sterbfritz, Hessen - Nassau, Preußen. > >There had been talk about having Clemens Schreiber, a local historian >living in Schlüchtern, read the area church books for us. The goal was to >get as much information about Johannes as possible. Karl-Heinz has >already had this done a few years back and has all the information in hand >which he will be mailing to me shortly. While there is a wealth of >ancestral information, there is little or no information on Johannes, none >that would be helpful to us in getting him "across the pond" to the >colonies. Church books reveal the following about Johannes: >*Birth date >*Christening date and sponsors names >*Confirmation >After that, there are no further records about Johannes. What is >noteworthy about this is that after the age of 13 there are no entries for >him, no death and no marriage. The fact that there is no death entry >implies that the towns people lost track of him and had no idea of his >whereabouts, whether he married and where and when he dies. He just >disappeared in the sense that after he left the area no one there had any >further contact with him. > >Karl-Heinz presents some history of the area at the time. During this >period the area was very depressed and poor. This was post robber baron >purge and pillage, drought and famine. The Duke of the area was looking >for a way to raise money for the depressed region. At this time, England >need man power to patrol the colonies (a national guard of sorts) and they >did not have enough man power to cover all the territories. They "rented" >manpower from areas of Europe and would pay kingdoms "per head" of bodies >they could have. There was a notice sent through the Sterbfritz area for >volunteers. Several men from the area joined. This meant they received >the appropriate papers to migrate to England, become an "English Soldier" >and be shipped to the colonies. He feels Johannes was one of those that >volunteered. If this is indeed the case, as seems very plausible right >now, we will never find Johannes on a Ship Manifest as he was transported >to the Colonies aboard a British Tr! >oops transport. He estimates the year to be somewhere in the range of >1722 to very latest 1730. With Johannes being born 1708, by 1730 he would >have been 22 yrs old. Karl-Heinz assumed him to have left earlier than >that as there is no record of marriage for him, by that age he would have >most likely married already. So anytime after the age of 16-18 (even at >the age of 14 he could have enlisted) would have been when he chose to >"enlist". With Johannes gone (the 1st son) all the land and real estate >went to the 2nd son, Hartmann. > >Karl-Heinz has an extensive database of the ancestors of Johannes and >Hartmann. His records go back to round about the year 1200 which he will >also be sending me (actually, I think he said it was already in the >mail). His database places the family in the Hessen area back to that date. > >The family is a noble one, full of judges, heads of church, etc. They >were Knights and Barons. There is indeed a family crest (not one that you >can order on the net, but a real documented one in the Germanic archives) >that he has a copy of and will provide as well. The lineage ultimately >traces back to Kaiser Karl der Grosse (Charlemagne) although Karl-Heinz >says he is working on the documents to make it all official. According to >the crest he has it was this nobility that the HERCHE lineage is connected >to and the house that granted the crest. Another direct German relative >is Heinrich Lübke, president of Germany 1959-1969. I will have more >specific information to post once I have Karl-Heinz's data in hand. > >Now I guess we need to look into Hessian Soldier records and see if we can >find anything to support Karl-Heinz's theory of Johannes' enlistment. So >far it is just a theory, but makes sense. > >I also have a scanned image of additional names in the tree that >Karl-Heinz sent me. For some reason not everyone I emailed a copy to >received it, either at all or in a form that could not be accessed. I >will convert it all to text and post those names as well, to the list so >everyone has a copy. > > > > > >==== HARKEY Mailing List ==== > Have you heard about the website for Big Uncle Cemetery, San Saba TX. > You'll find it interesting If any of your Harkey's went to Texas. >http://www.rootsweb.com/~txssaba/uncle.html > >============================== >To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, >go to: >http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237