Hi Theres, You mentioned getting the children's birth records. Are their death records available as well? My second great-grandmother had 12 siblings. Two were born in Ohio before birth records were required there, so no help there. Nine others died in the US, but only one death certificate mentioned the names of the towns from which their parents hailed. I would also pursue church records, especially for the children's baptisms. Start with a map of the area and look for churches within walking distance. Many of the records are extant even if the church is no longer standing. Did any of the couple's children die as infants? Those records would be worth investigating. You really don't sound confused. :o) I get the feeling you've explored a lot of resources that unfortunately just haven't panned out. If you can narrow down the size of the your geographical options, maybe things will start falling into place for you. Take another look at those kids. One of them may hold the key. Laura On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 8:30 AM, [email protected] < [email protected]> wrote: > Hello all. Please forgive the length of this post. I am detailing my > confusion in the hopes that some kind soul will point out something obvious > that I am not seeing for the trees. > > I have two immigrant ancestors who I believe to be from Lorraine. There > are a few rumors about these two, a few things I have found, and an > unfortunate murder which got into the papers and left something of a trail, > although how reliable that trail is who knows, papers being what they are, > upset people talking to reporters being what they are, etc. I am pretty > much at a loss trying to figure out exactly when they immigrated and > exactly from where, and am not sure where to start. >