Mardiros SIMONIAN/SIMONJAN was my great grandfather. He was born in 1887 in Marash, Armenia (now Kahramanmaras, Turkey). Orphaned in the Hamidian Massacres of 1895 he grew up in the Syrian Orphanage of Jerusalem where he was sponsored by a German church. When he was 18 he left for Germany to find his sponsors in Cologne. He married Martha Agnes Hoffmann and raised a family in Cologne. He worked as a heavy duty mechanic, mostly on train locomotives.

I am looking for any other info at all, especially how to trace roots in Armenia, via church record or are there other ways?

Thanks, Mona