Curdt Mesenbring

Parents unknown
Curdt Mesenbring's birth place and parents are unknown. The earliest record we have of him is from his marriage record in 1640, which is also the earliest known written record of the Mesenbring / Mesenbrink last name. From 1640 to his death in 1691, he lived near to the Holtorf church. In 1689, his residence was in Erichshagen, the village to the East of Holtorf.

Curdt is likely descended from Hans Mesenbringk and Ludeke Mesenbrinck (who were likely father and son) who were listed as living in Erichshagen in the 1585 Calenberg Draft List. Ludeke was old enough to be Curdt's grandfather.

House fire in 1681
There is a book (Deutsches Geschlechterbuch) that mentions him and has a short bio:

"Mesenbrink, Curt *, ... 1608 (err.), Holtorf bei Nienburg an der Weser 13. 8. 1691 , Bürger und Kirchenjurat zu Erichshagen bei Nienburg , 1681 verbrannten sein Haus und seine Habseligkeiten ebd .; oo Holtorf 9. 6. 1640 Twachtmann , Adelheit"

(Translation):
Mesenbrink, Curt *, ... 1608 (???.), Holtorf near Nienburg an der Weser 13. 8. 1691 , citizen and church jury of Erichshagen near Nienburg , 1681 his house and his belongings burned
ibid .; oo Holtorf 9. 6 1640 Twachtmann, Adelheit ... 25. 03. 1664
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Deutsches_Geschlechterbuch/PkZ...

Holtorf village church records
The village of Holtorf has a church with a record book of marriages, baptisms/births, death/burials starting in the year 1639. Since Curdt was born before then, we don't have any record of his birth or who his parents were.

The Holtorf church records are indexed on familysearch.org, but the indexes have a lot of errors in transcription (with lots of variety in the spelling of Mesenbring and other things), and all the records are off by one page in the original record image. So if you want to see the record image associated with an indexed record, you have to move forward one page to find it.

The first direct reference to the Mesenbring family is in Curdt's marriage record for his first marriage in 1640 to Adelheit:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPNZ-91HH

In addition to his own marriage records and the baptism records of his children, Curdt Mesenbring is listed as a witness on at least 16 baptism records in the Holtorf church record book from 1642 - 1690. (Full book available on familysearch.org, linked on Curdt's marriage record and other records related to him).

Family Tree on GEDBAS
The following user-submitted genealogy confirms much of this tree of Curdt Mesenbring's descendants that I independently constructed based on the Holtorf church records:
https://gedbas.genealogy.net/person/show/1285268994

Erichshagen and the Thirty Years War
Curdt Mesenbring was about 9 years old when the Thirty Years' War began (1618 to 1648).

"At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War in 1618, Erichshagen already had 45 townspeople, but the town of Nienburg was besieged twice by the Catholic army commander Tilly, and the village and its population were drawn directly into the hostilities. In addition to the war losses and destruction, there was the plague around 1627, which also claimed its victims in Erichshagen. When Nienburg - also weakened by the victims of the "Black Death" - surrendered to Tilly at the end of 1627, 24 Erichshagen citizens were dead, only 21 survived. 16 houses were devastated and seven burned down. But soon the construction began again and in 1632 Erichshagen had 25 citizens again and in 1636 32 citizens and one cottager. Wölpe Castle was also still standing at this time,
Shortly before the end of the war in 1644, eight Swedish companies occupied the town of Erichshagen and stormed Wölpe Castle the following day. They occupied the fortress for more than a month and let the people of Erichshagen take care of them, so that they lost all their belongings, livestock and supplies.
When peace finally reigned in 1648, the town of Erichshagen was devastated, houses burned down and the population robbed, but the survivors took heart and began to rebuild. The Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg also instructed his Drosten in the individual offices to push ahead with the reconstruction of the deserted and burned down houses.

According to the poll tax description of the principalities of Calenberg-Göttingen and Grubenhagen, 301 people lived in Erichshagen as early as 1689."

https://www.erichshagen-woelpe.de/geschichte/Flecken.htm