>I have also noted that some add an 'e' and others do not. Seems no logic. A > bit like Volker and Folker, nobody knows why. If the "E" come after "A", "O", or "U", then you are probably seeing a confusion on how to represent the German umlaut (the two dots over A/O/U) as, by convention, these are written as AE, OE and UE if the umlaut is not available (e.g. on a printing press). When our ancestors with umlauts in their name came to Australia, Australians didn't understand this convention with the "E" and often simply omitted the umlaut without adding the E, so you often find those German names in Australia spelled both with and without the E. See here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umlaut_%28diacritic%29#Printing_conventions_in_German Kerry