My oldest known ancestor was Johann Jacob Dames/Dahmes/Dahms. He was in old documents called a "Wirt" (store-keeper) and he was a "Leibeigener" (serv, bondman) of the Graf (count) zu Wied. He is named in Irlich the 1.st time at 1677 in the church-book. His children was Johannes *1665 (married to Koblenz 1690), Andreas *1666 (my line), Hermann *1677 and Margarethe *1680. The descendants of Joh.Jakob are grown up to hundreds. Your Edward G. Dahms I could not find in my collection of documents. I will try to find the church-books of Hammerstein. I need some time for this. Do you know the year of his birth?