Looking for: birthplace of catholic Hollandgänger Stoffel (Barent-son) Berkhoff ± 1671 Hamm-Soest, Nordrhein Westfalen or Braunschweig-area, Hanover
L.S.,
During the years our family managed to trace our ancestors back to the city hall of Weesp (a little town near Amsterdam; The Netherlands) 9 November 1698, where Miss Catarina Poppel took the hand of Stoffel (Barent-son) Berkhoff and said yes to her 27 years old lover. In the marriage-certificate we can read further not only that he said yes too, but also that he was born in the area of Munster ("uyt Munsterlant"). So the young girl married a so-called Hollandgänger.
Now we are looking for ´the missing link / birthplace` to get on the road again. From other sources we know Stoffel was a catholic and Internet site www.dastelefonbuch.de shows us a lot of hits (40 out of 99) on our surname in the area of Hamm-Soest, Nordrhein-Westfalen, and around Braunschweig, Hanover (23 out of 99). So on this basis we do think it is possible that further research could be a success. At this stage however some -German- help is needed.
Does someone have -in his database- the birthplace of Hollandgänger Stoffel (Barent-son) Berkhoff who was born around 1671 in the diocese of Munster (or Hanover), or bring us in contact with people who do have?
with kind regards, Marnix Berkhoff, NL. (German language; writing: -- ; reading: +).