Hi Dolores, I think there is a great possibility your family left from another country. Holland , France,Denmark One set of mine left from Stettin, GE ,a port seldom seen on records. Another member of that family traveled many miles West to LeHarve from area of Pommerin. I figure he didn't have any emigration records,& was of military age (21).I found his entrance into US though castlegarden.org. My Swiss group left from LeHarve, traveling under the name of Perry rather then Berry and likely the purser of ship (an American ship) made that error when they came on board.. I was extremely lucky finding the family as another Swiss Berry was on board and I had printed out the ship list and going through list found the Perry family makeup/names and ages of 7 persons. My date for US entrance had been confirmed in 3 other sources. Found in castlegarden.org Persons leaving from other foreign ports generally gave their home countries, as other ports did not have any restrictions on foreign persons leaving. , nor any special emigration papers needed. I suggest you keep plugging in the name of Helstern on the site., using wildcards as for example: He********* and Ha*******. even Hi,Hu & Ho as in Holstern. Lots of names to go through but you could luck out. If you find one name /age/country that looks likely then you can plug in that ship name also and maybe find the entire family. Best of Luck to you. Jane > > >> >> > > > > From: "Dolores" <funybugd@insightbb.com> > > Since I have been unable to find anything on immigration of my > ggmother and her family from Germany to USA, is it possible that they > left from a different place than Germany? If they left from someplace > else, how would I go about finding where and when? I do have a date > of 1861 for immigration, but still cannot find any record. The only > place I have found the name Helstern is on her death certificate, > which from past experiences, could be spelled wrong. Any suggestions? >