(Research):On 23 Jan 2010, I received a letter from the Kassel Archives responding to an e-mail I sent asking for the church christening records of Martha Elisabeth Siemon and Conrad Roes. The letter had a copy of an entry from the Melsungen church books of a Martha Elisabeth Siemon born 1 Jan 1753 to a Samuel rather than a Philip Siemon.

I sent the letter to Trudy Schenk. In response she told me their letter said something along the lines of, "Because of the poor condition of the Melsungen church books (very faded writing) and the two sets of books, a search for your Siemons name is not feasable. The two sets of books require searching both since it is not known which contais the Siemons famliy. We hope the name we found is of your line. Normaly there is a charge but in this case we will not charge the usual fee." She discouraged me from paying someone to search the Melsungen records. She went on to say, "This makes me think that a search for you at the archive would be lengthy with little success. They don't know for sure if what they found is the family you need. One could sit at the archive with difficult fiche to read and not find anything for hours. You better think twice before paying someone. I would not use this birth yet and change the fathers name. Sorry this seems to be complecated research which takes lots of time. Melsungen is a fairly large parish with many entries each year."