Kurck

The heiress of the old Kurki family of Niemenpää married sometime in the late 14th century a nobleman named Herman, of either Swedish or German extraction and using the nickname Svärd, "sword", in accordance with his coat of arms.

This Jeppe Kurki (Jacob, Jaakko, Jesper) married Karin Klasdotter, daughter of Klas Lydekesson, an important heiress.

Elin's son Jöns Knutsson (1503-c 1577) inherited his uncle the bishop Arvid and was the next owner of Laukko and the Kurki patrimony.

Her husband was lawspeaker Knut Eriksson (died in 1539 at great age), a member of the Privy Council of Sweden and since 1511 lagman of Northern Finland (Elgenstierna gives him as a scion of the Smålandic family of petty gentry holding the manor of Näs; but Gillingstam opines him being of Finnic extraction).

Elin's son Jöns Knutsson Kurck (1503-c 1577) was also member of the royal council (PC) and his father's successor as lawspeaker.

The family continues through a son of Jöns' second marriage with Ingeborg Tott: Colonel Axel Kurck 1555–1630 was a soldier whom revolting Cudgel men (nuijamiehet) wanted to make their chief, but he did not consent.

Jöns Kurck (1590–1652), member of the Royal Council and president of Court of Appeals of Turku, was created friherre (baron) in 1652, and he started the baronial family that survived to the 20th century.

The baronial Kurck family held the Laukko manor yet over a century, but settled chiefly in Sweden in the area of Stockholm, because they were of high nobility and often among the important officials of the kingdom.

The current king of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander (born 1967), Prince of Orange, descends paternally, through a female line, after 500 years, from each of the three above-mentioned Finnish families of Kurck.

The Horn counts of Pori, Finland descend, through the Porvoo-originated owners of the manor of Sydänmaa, from a daughter of the abovementioned lady Elin Klasdotter, heiress of the Kurck of Laukko, and her husband lawspeaker Knut Eriksson.