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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1996-10 > 0844204054


From: Kathryn Graham <>
Subject: Re: Wm. of Orange
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 14:07:34 -0700


Wally wrote:

>In <52nfg3$> (Grant Menzies) writes:
>>
>>John Yohalem <> wrote:
>
>>It puts me in mind of a story in my family featuring a fortune in
>>search of heirs. In the 1550's one Ortwin Lauck, a wealthy merchant
>>whose family was based in northern Hessen, lent the city of Antwerp a
>>sum of money which was to be repaid but, for reasons unknown to me,
>>never was within Ortwin's lifetime. Since he died without heirs, the
>>matter either was deliberately slipped under the silk carpets of
>>Antwerp or was just lost in the paperwork. However over a century
>>later, the Lauck/Lucan family (my branch spelled it in the latter
>>form) got wind of the Antwerp debt and promptly sent some lawyers to
>>see what it was about. One can imagine their surprise when it turned
>>out that the debt, with interest, had grown to nearly 29,000 Antwerp
>>Gulden--something over a million dollars in modern currency. Now
>>begana hunt for Ortwin's heirs--namely, the children of his three
>>brothers and one sister. Since part of the court proceedings involved
>>tracking down every single possible heir, the Lucan descent was
>>tracked back beyond Ortwin and then down from his time to 1662, the
>>year the case was brought to the courts. My 10x great-grandmother,
>>Anna Maria Lucan, was a grand-niece of Ortwin Lauck's, and because of
>>the genealogical dragnet all her ancestry, as known, had been traced,
>>showing all her collateral relatives as well--something that
>>particularly interests me, her descendant. (Of course, most
>>interesting of all is what happened to all that money ;-)
>>
>>
>>G M Menzies
>>
>
>Well??... We all wait with baited breath... Did she get any?... 8)
>
>-Wally

Hi Wally,

Do you get many dates with that 'baited' breath?

Kathie

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