Hello, I was able to find Semberg and Samberg using the Jewish Shtetlseeker. http://www.jewishgen.org/ShtetlSeeker/loctown.htm Give it a try. Put in your spellings and select Germany. Click on "start search". You will be given a number of possibilities. Click on the coordinates of the town you want to find and you will be taken to mapquest where the red star places the location for you. You can identify icon as far as it will go. Sometimes the towns are too small to actually show up as named but the red star is the location. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate Refthal.....I think this is a misspelling. Try some other spellings of the word and see what shows up. Regards, Mary Ann > My gggrandfather Wolfgang Johannes ADELHOCH was born 10 June 1784 at > Refthal, Oberpfalz, Bayern, according to information that I have received. > I am unable to locate "Refthal" using Mapquest, geo@genealogy.net or > maps@microsoft.com. Is this a geographical area rather than a town? My > earliest known ancestors come from Samberg or Sänberg in the Oberpfalz. > Are these 2 spellings variations of the same place? Neither is in > geo@genealogy.net or maps@microsoft.com, but Samberg is shown in Mapquest. > > His son Jakob, my ggrandfather, born 7 July 1818 and his surname is spelled > ADLHOCH, as are his descendants through my line (Georg born 1857 and Peter > born 1898). In my experience, the spelling of this surname has been > butchered unbelievably by people in all walks of life (I have collected 167 > different misspellings in the past 25 years!). I have recently discovered > - in North America only - some ADLHOCK and ADELHOCK surnames. Does anyone > know whether these are corruptions of the versions ending in 'H'? > > Recently I also made the acquaintance of an ADLHOCH from Quebec who claimed > that the surname HADLOCK originated in the eastern townships of Quebec > because this was the phonetic spelling of the common pronunciation of > ADLHOCH. Does anyone have any information on this? Again, this surname is > very common in the US (over 200 phone listings) while there are only 3 in > Germany. > > Any information on these surnames or HOFWEBER (also from Bavaria) would be > greatly appreciated. > > Thanks! > Tom Adlhoch > adlhoch@interlog.com --- Mary Ann Allen wallen@pipeline.com The Gathering Place http://sites.netscape.net/murrallen/homepage