26. Januar 2023

Please mind my preliminary remarks in the text about Weinsheim.

Today Gensingen lies in the Kreis Mainz-Bingen in Rhineland-Palatinate. It is situated about 10 km north of the city of Bad Kreuznach.

Unfortunately, no church books of Gensingen are available in Ancestry. But I could find them in Archion (www.archion.de).

There is a church book of the Evangelical-Reformed (ref) community and another one of the Evangelical-Lutheran (luth) community. In both of them we find entries which are of interest for us.

The Lutheran records are completely available from 1721 on.

The Reformed records, however, provide only the baptisms from 1721 on, all other parts begin in 1750/51. This means that all entries before 1750/51 except the baptisms are missing.

I found the following entries:

1) the baptism of Maria Ottilia, born in 1727 (ref), whose parents were “Andreas Körper” and his wife; picture [6] on the film

2) the baptism of a child of Johannes Jung in 1729 (luth) whose godparents were “Andreas Cörper” and his wife Anna Maria

3) the burial of Andreas’s wife Anna Maria on August 12, 1743 in Gensingen (luth) aged 57 years; “Anna Maria, Andreas Cörpers Eheweib zu Genßingen”

What can we conclude from these bits of information?

Andreas Cörper/Körper of Gensingen belonged to the Reformed church whereas his wife was Lutheran. Otherwise, the baptism of their only daughter would not have been noted down in the Reformed church book. The burial of Anna Maria is found in the Lutheran church book.

Anna Maria was born about 1686. This means that she was about 12 years his senior. When the daughter was born, she was already 41 years old. It is not astounding that she was her last child.

It is very likely that Andreas had married a widow. Their marriage had taken place probably a year or so before the child was born. We can assume that they married in 1725 or 1726. The entry was written in the Reformed church book which no longer exists. If they were copulated by a Lutheran reverend, we could find it unless the marriage was before 1721. But in this case, it would be strange that their child was born only in 1727.

The burial entry from 1743 mentions Andreas as a living person. It seems clear that he attended the burial. Otherwise, it would have been mentioned in some way.

The church books do not tell us anything else about the daughter. It is possible that she died undocumented before the burial entries in the Reformed church book start.

Now let us look at the question how Andreas can be included in my story because we have to connect him with the “Andreas Coerper” in Pennsylvania.

It is possible that Andreas died undocumented in Gensingen before the burial registry begins. This is a weak point in my argumentation.

Another weak point is that there is no evidence that our Andreas from Weinsheim is identical with the man in Gensingen. My only argument is that there is no alternative. In the course of my research, I found no other Andreas who could have emerged in Gensingen. The fact that this man was Reformed is consistent with his origin from Weinsheim.