Marty, you've been so quiet. Are you on the GEIGER List - and getting these messages from Roland Geiger? I think your original message was on the Query Forum. Roland, that grumpy man who hung up on you must not have been a true Geiger - we're ALWAYS interested in our roots! <g> As I said, I don't speak the language, but I lean toward your first interpretation of "Söldner" as "mercenary". My translation came from Langenscheidt's English-German Dictionary, revised 1970, which says: "Sold" = pay. "Soldat" = soldier. "Söldner" = mercenary. When I looked up "mercenary", it said that in the military sense it would be "Söldner". In an 1880 dictionary, written in Old German, it said "Sold" = military pay and "Söldling" or "Söldner" = mercenary, hireling. My guess would be that the meaning of the term changed in more recent times, into "day laborer". Perhaps Herr Oswald can clarify this point. One more thing, Marty. I found your village and now I wonder if your Geigers were among the early Swiss ones who first moved up to Germany. From the center of the Bodensee (Lake Constance) on Swiss border, if you run your eye due north you will see Stuttgart, Germany. Treffelhausen is south-east - maybe about 50-55 kms? SE out of Stuttgart, follow Rte. 10 to Süssen and turn east on 466. Go through Donzdorf, then Lauterstein, then you'll see the town of Böhmenkirch. Treffelhsn. is just west on a little road that goes south off 466 and back up to Donzdorf. Very pretty area. Anne C. ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> about Treffelhausen. I called to numbers on the phone list mentioning Geiger's and the first one - well, he had no idea what I was talking of and thought I wanted to tease him when he said at the phone "Geiger, Guten Abend!" - I answered "Hier ist auch Geiger, aber aus dem Saarland" - This is also Geiger, but from the State of Saarland. I asked him about someone who researches family things and he only mentioned "I don't care for such stuff" - crack. Gone he was. Hm. Next one. "Well, I don't know anything but call my father - he might know". I called his father - Heinrich on the list - last Sunday afternoon and also he didn't know Vitus or Johannes Geiger he mentioned that the profession "Söldner" was not a mercenary or a soldier but a day labourer. A man who gets "Sold" - the old word for wages. Heinrich Geiger told me to contact a Karl Oswald, author of a history book about the community of Boehmkirch where Treffelhausen belongs to. Maybe the book mentions Emigrants from Treffelhausen. I will keep you informed. Roland Geiger, St. Wendel, Germany