Julie and All, According to his Naturalization papers, Christian was born in Saxony and was age 26 when he renounced his allegiance to the Sace (?) of Coburgh on 4 Oct 1856. He signed the document as Christian KÖHLER. My sister-in-law has personally seen documents that say he was born in Metz [Germanic Europe]. I have not seen these, but she hard-copied directly from them. She, and my husband's brother, have found other documents, relating to Christian, that show him to be from Europe. His cemetery stone reads, Christian F. KOEHLER, and shows dates of b 22 Sept 1837 and d 3 Jan 1906. This birth year does not correlate with the "age 26 in 1856" as shown on his Naturalization. Glenn Geisheimer responded to me with information about a Christian Friedrich KELLER (b 22 Sept 1826 in Herrenalb, Wuerttemberg) who was the s/o Jakob Friedrich KELLER and Maria Christiana Friederike GECKLE. I have not yet had the opportunity to study old European maps to see if I can make sense of any of this, but yes, I feel, with the group of documents we have seen, that Christian was indeed born in Germanic Europe. I am very curious, however, to know why you ask. Thanks for writing. Leslie (Bridges) Kohler ----- Original Message ----- From: <Jewelross@aol.com> To: <KOHLER-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 6:06 PM Subject: Re: [Kohler] Christian (1837-1906) > Dear Leslie, > Are you sure that your family came from Germanic Europe? And do you have any > specific reference to where exactly they were from? > Julie ----- Original Message ----- From: "~~Leslie~~" <Aug67@att.net> To: <KOHLER-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 6:30 AM Subject: [KOHLER] Christian (1837-1906) My husband's family was from Macon & Adair Counties, MO. His Ggrandfather, Christian F. [Koehler... according to the U.S. records], came to the U.S. in 1852 from Germanic Europe. We know nothing of Christian's siblings, nor do we yet know the Germanic spelling of his Koehler name. [Naturally, it could be KÖHLER.] Leslie (Bridges) Kohler