My Trails into the Past

This is week 15 of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge” by Amy Crow from  No Story Too Small .  I am a bit behind but intend to catch up. Today I am writing about the oldest Hork ancestor I have found, Röttger Horoch. Notice the spelling of Hork in the earlier times? I found the spelling in a variety of ways: Horrock, Horroch, Horock, and later in the 19th Century, it was spelled Hork. These were all from German church records. I have two records found in church books about Röttger: the marriage record to Dorothea Voss and his death/burial record. From the death record, he died on the 13th day of February in 1816. [1] He was approximately 87 years old. This would make him born about 1729 plus or minus a few years. There are church records going back that far in Kirchhundem. When I get better at reading the old handwriting, I will search for his birth/baptism record. Here is the death record. Don’t you love that old German handwriting? From the wee...