Yes, DJ, I'm reading your comments and I have to admit that I've seen a number of the southern Missouri German immigrants who had departed from LaHavre. Namely the ones I've found were from Bohlsbach and Appenweier, but I'm sure many others were from all over Ortenau. But my great, great grandfather from Windschlaeg left from Antwerp. I have yet to find ship records for my other German ancestors. About that information I sent in, I had not tested it prior to sending it as I already have access to immigration records. But since it was sent to me from another List, and sounded free, I figured why not pass it on. Sorry if it proved a disappointment. My experience on searching immigration records is that it depends on who was transcribing the records. I've seen a Petranella become a Nellie and a J. become a T., depending on which site I searched. Then when I search by soundex, I'll get flooded with the most unbelievably crazy spellings. Carol -----Original Message----- From: djweber [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 8:01 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Ortenau] A (very) limited "survey" on Ports of Embarkatioin After Carol Rogers forwarded to the List the information that the OliveTree web site had access to the Ancestry New York City Passenger Lists arrivals for the period 1851-1891, I tried a limited test for a number of different surnames which I had remembered from my attempts to read Church Registers of towns within the Ortenau using the surname and the keyword of Baden in the search. The "winning" port of embarkation hands down was LeHavre. I expected a high percentage of emigrants to have departed from LeHavre because LeHavre was a major port of commerce from Europe to the United States before and after the American War of the Rebellion but the number per page from that web site for Baden emigrants was surprising. For some of the pages of those emigrants no other port was identified. I did not do an actual count as my test was very limited but the expected Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Bremen listings were in a certain minority. Of course, for many of the earlier years within this time period Hamburg was not as yet an important seaport. The suggestion from this limited survey could be that our ancestors may have emigrated through the Port of LeHavre.....but my own ancestors from Baden may cancel any value to the thought that LeHavre was most usual port. My ancestors left through Rotterdam but not they nor any of the additional emigrants from the same Manifest are listed in that 1851-1891 New York database. It can mean that if the emigrant left the Ortenau, think LeHavre, at least, if the arrival location was New York City. And, it can mean NOTHING. djweber [email protected] ==== DEU-BAD-ORTENAU Mailing List ==== A list of Historic and Current towns of the Ortenau can be found at < http://ortenau-history.de.vu >. ============================== Search Family and Local Histories for stories about your family and the areas they lived. Over 85 million names added in the last 12 months. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13966/rd.ashx