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Dear Miss Ashley, and and others interested.
Thought I post the latest events regarding Ashleys Patent of Nobility.
The most rewarding phonecalls of those I made was with the Chief Genealogist at the House of Nobles here in Stockholm. The reaction I got when I described how this document had come to my knowledge was just as my own when I saw Ashleys post for the first time; a few seconds of absolute silence, ..a FLEA MARKET.. in USA!?!?, how the blaz..., this was VERY interesting! and so on.
Anyway, the only thing I had was the name, Gerhard Kopler, his rank, the year and the place. Did he manage to make anything out of it? Yes! Within 2 minutes he had found him. Knighted von Lowenheim, his step daughter, stepson, he also had 3 sons, there was a passus refering to something in Riksarkivet (The National Archive). This was only the first step in the process of trying to get the document veryfied as genuine.
(Ashley, I will mail you the adress and let you know what to do next).
We speculated a bit how it could have ended up in the US and probably is it beacuse the family seemed to have died out fairly fast, otherwise Patents of Nobility stays within the family, wich of course is the reason that there are so few on the open market.
He was most anxious to get to see the content of the document, what The House of Nobles would enjoy most would be to be able to revive the 'family' (I do not know what it is in English it is that word for a noble family). As I understood it, there might be a chance that they find a clue in the document wich could make it possible to trace a now living person, in order to 'restore' the 'family'. A little bit unsure of how that was supposed to work being a normal mortal.
So the guy existed, the next question is: Is the document genuine? No one can know for shure yet, but I stick my neck out and confess that I am optimistic about it.
Finally, 300 USD have been payed, for this (maybe) almost 300 y.o. document. The House of Nobles have earlier bought similar documents to 'take them back to their proper place', I asked him how much they had payed then, so I know, but I am only telling Ashley how much it was.
If all of this works out as I hope and think it will, then it could be very interesting to see what opinions there might be regarding the monetary value when the historic and all other aspects have been taken into consideration.
Regards Martin W.
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