I am new to the list and am researching SCHAEFER, STRAUB, KUNZMAN and HUBER from Germany. My great, great grandfather is/was Lorenz (Lawrence) Schaefer. On the death certificate of his daughter, his name is spelled LAURENCE. The church records at St. Alphonsus in Baltimore, MD has it as LORENZ and states that he was from Burgstadt, Bavaria. LORENZ came to the US about 1847 at the age of about 22 or 23. I tend to think that the church records spelling of LORENZ is probably more likely to be correct, because it was a German speaking congregation and the records were written in German. When I look at a map, I see two possibilities for Burgstadt: If the records are correct, there is a Burgstadt ---about SW of Wursburg and SE of Darmstadt or Burstadt---near Worms, between Darmstadt and Mannheim. I'm sure he must have been christened as a baby, are there still records from the early 1800's in these small German towns and how would I go about obtaining them? Where would be the most likely port for him to have departed from? Any and all help or suggestions will be gratefully accepted. Carole in CA