Carol and dj, > I might guess that all your early searchings with all the different > variantions in spellings would end up today with families of the name of > Ehrhardt. some families prefered Ehret (because it's shorter?) and some Ehrhardt in Niederschopfheim. I believe there are more Ehret than Ehrhardt in Hohberg nowadays. Therefore it's really not easy to determine if you should write Ehret or Ehrhardt. - Wendelin