Thank you for all the insight. My great grandfather(Christian Henzler) was the only one from his family to emigrate, and I often wondered why he did. Now I have a pretty good idea. One of my great grandfathers (Christian's father - in - law) emigrated in 1849 from Baden, but he was older (27 at the time) and his parents and two of his brothers emigrated at the same time. I assume that they emigrated because of economically reasons. They were farmers in in the U.S. They might have emigrated because of the Revolution of 1849, they left Germany in the spring of 1849 I am sure that they left legally, because I have a copy of the "contract ticket" they used to come to the US and it was issued in Mannhiem. Again thank you for all the information. I only recently started my research on the German side of my family and I an finding it very interesting. Barbara