Hello all, About 6 weeks ago I posted a message stating I was trying to figure out how find the birthdates and places for my Lutz and Paar ancestors that came to the USA from Hessen-Darmstadt. I had a number of replies/suggestions and so now I wanted to share with everyone how I successfully found my answers. I happened to have a baptism record for my Great-grandmother Ida Lutz, from the St. Peter's UCC in West Seneca/Erie Co., NY. After writing St. Peter's and never getting a response, I hired someone, Ned Schimminger, and expert on German genealogy in Erie County, and he went to St. Peter's and searched through their records. He successfully found everything I needed. From both his Confirmation and his death record, my GGgrandfather Wilhelm Lutz was born in Nieder-Bessingen, just north of Frankfurt, on the 20th of December 1843. His mother, Anna Barbara Roth (got her maiden name too!), was also born in Nieder-Bessingen, on the 26th of Jun 1805. Even Wilhelm's father, Johann Lutz, was also born in Nieder-Bessingen, in 1796 (St. Peter's did not have an exact date). Ned even found the marriage date for Wilhelm Lutz and Wilhelmine Paar that occurred in St. Peter's church on the 10th of Sep 1867. He is now going back to Trinity Lutheran Church, where Wilhelmine (Paar) Lutz died, to find her exact birthplace in Hessen-Darmstadt. So now that I know the town where my Lutz/Roth ancestors originated, I went back to the LDS site and searched for "Nieder" and found that church records for Nieder-Bessingen go back to 1651!! It therefore looks like I'm in position to trace my Lutz and Roth ancestors quite a ways back in Hessen-Darmstadt. Anyway, thanks a ton to all of you (there were many) who gave me advice. For me, german-american church records is where to start for trying to figure which town your ancestor came from. My next plan would have been to write the Hessen Darmstadt Archives in Germany as someone else on this list suggested to me. Best of luck to all! Brian -----Original Message----- From: DmRice@aol.com [mailto:DmRice@aol.com] Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 8:27 AM To: HESSE-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [HESSE] Kreis list for early 19th century Hessen/Kreis Humme Do you suppose there might be enough desperate people who know only that the census said the family came from Hesse Darmstadt that we could divide up the relevant LDS films and look for all of each others names? Maybe I could find my BIEDENKOPFs that way. Barbara Rice ==== HESSE Mailing List ==== Postal Codes, How to Pay for Research, German Language Letters, Archive Addresses, German Telephone directory, http://members.cox.net/hessen/table.htm --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.541 / Virus Database: 335 - Release Date: 11/14/2003 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.541 / Virus Database: 335 - Release Date: 11/14/2003