Familiy-arities

So I started Bettenhäuser later last night. Immediately I was struck with names of famous people (at least to me they are): Amelie Elisabeth Gräfin v. Hanau-Münzenberg, Landgraf Moritz, Landgraf Wilhelm VI, so that was recognisable to me and helped a lot when I read the book. Of course it is a dissertation, so it does not really read like any childhood bedtimestory. Still when there are some familiarities it is easier to comprehent. The dissertation starts of with a description of the country Hessen-Cassel and the familiy of the Landgrave in the period leading up to the Marburger Erbfolgestreit. It goes on with a description of the several alliances Landgräfin Amalie Elisabeth was in with France and Sweden. That's basically as far as I got last night.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marburger_Erbfolgestreit#Marburger_Erbfolgestreit

The second familiarity I found (or knew to find) in this book was the name of one of the 4 delegates to the Congress of Westphalen (not in Münster bot in Osnabrück): Nicolaus Christoph Mü/u/ild(e)ner (well, it IS the 17th century, so no-one really knew how to write his or her name correctly or rather there was not yet a register with the rightname of the individual set-up). The line of his descendants probably did not die out completely, there are still some people in the Hannover area of Germany whom I suspect to descent of(or is it from?) him. Most of the descending lines however as far as I have been able to research, died out (1). Anyway, he is mentioned about 4-6 times in Bettenhäuser. He replaced one of the originale delegates, who was injured in a fall. I have not come yet to the description of NCM's heroic acts, but I will keep you posted.

(1) to prevent further "pollution" in this blog I will just state here that I am preparing a publication on the ancestors and descendants of Nikolaus Christoph Müldner.