I have two sets of great-grandparents on the paternal side that left their countries and immigrated to the US in the 1870s and 1892 respectively. My great-grandfather, Ferdinand BILLIAN, came to the US from Schabenhausen, Wurttemberg, Germany in 1874 and settled first in Meriden then New Britain. The oral history is that he deserted the Prussian army and stowed away on a ship to get here. I have never been able to confirm that information. His mother and his siblings had arrived in 1873 and settled in Meriden, CT in the German section of town. My paternal grandmother's parents left Sweden in May 1892 and settled in New Britain, CT. My great-grandfather, Anders Johan Svensson Halldin, had apprenticed in Haldin, Norway to be a tailor (hence taking the name Halldin) and was a master tailor in New Britain, making the garments for the bank executives and the like. Misfortune befell him when he took to drink and in 1910 committed suicide in jail. His wife, my g. grandmother, Karolina Charlotta Carlsdotter (used the name RAHM ) and came to this country with her husband and two infant sons. One child died either on the ship or soon after they arrived. Nine of Karolina's siblings also immigrated before she did and some settled in New Britain. I probably have cousins in New Britain that I do not even know! Janice