Hello Kathy, We meet again. The link provided you is an excellent tool, but be aware this is current distribution. It may give a good idea where to look. But it may not be the origin point for the name. Some names can be narrowed down by dialect. This is a linguistic problem, and although I've studied linguistics I have not studied name origins. It's a tough field. There are some books available that do conquer this subject. So the link may help you locate where your Giffels settled. It does seem to give a fairly tight distribution. Make sure to view both the relative and absolute distributions. They can be quite different and offer clues. Good luck, Brian On Sat, January 22, 2011 1:13 pm, Kathy Cochran wrote: > Hello, Arden, > > Thank you for your kind reply, and your encouragement as well. Sometimes > it > just gets so discouraging - continuing to bang my head up against so many > brick walls. > > One question that keeps bugging me is why these people that emigrated > never > talked very much about the towns or villages from whence they came. > > Also, another question - that someone out there will know. There is > another German name that I want to find out where they were from. My > mother > was a GIFFELS, which apparently came from only a very small part of > Germany. > I believe that there is a way to find out what areas the name pops up in. > Does anyone have that link handy? > > Thanks again for the encouragement.......... > > > > Kathy Cochran >

Thanks for your comment, Brian. I understand "current distribution" as opposed to 1836, or whatever. At least the name Giffels is relatively rare, not like the name BORN - which on a search brings up ANYONE who was "born" on ____________ Actually, I even have a ship manifest for this family - on the 19th of August 1842 on the ship Sarah Schaefer the family came in to the Port Of New York. Hubert and Margaret Giffels, at the bottom of the page. It lists "Prussia" - maybe. Looks like another VERY LARGE area to me. And I don't know anything about Prussia. But it looks like we may have landed on the Borns in Alzey, Hessen. Whoopee! Kathy -----Original Message----- From: hesse-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:hesse-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of brian@amason.net Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2011 9:26 PM To: hesse@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [HESSE] Hessian Dialect Hello Kathy, We meet again. The link provided you is an excellent tool, but be aware this is current distribution. It may give a good idea where to look. But it may not be the origin point for the name. Some names can be narrowed down by dialect. This is a linguistic problem, and although I've studied linguistics I have not studied name origins. It's a tough field. There are some books available that do conquer this subject. So the link may help you locate where your Giffels settled. It does seem to give a fairly tight distribution. Make sure to view both the relative and absolute distributions. They can be quite different and offer clues. Good luck, Brian On Sat, January 22, 2011 1:13 pm, Kathy Cochran wrote: > Hello, Arden, > > Thank you for your kind reply, and your encouragement as well. Sometimes > it > just gets so discouraging - continuing to bang my head up against so many > brick walls. > > One question that keeps bugging me is why these people that emigrated > never > talked very much about the towns or villages from whence they came. > > Also, another question - that someone out there will know. There is > another German name that I want to find out where they were from. My > mother > was a GIFFELS, which apparently came from only a very small part of > Germany. > I believe that there is a way to find out what areas the name pops up in. > Does anyone have that link handy? > > Thanks again for the encouragement.......... > > > > Kathy Cochran > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to HESSE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi Kathy, If you want to do a Google search and have a first name you can do it as follows: "Maria Born" -"born in" -"was OR were born" -"born at" -"anyone born" -"new born" ~genealog* Yes, you will have to wade through many that are not relevant but should turn up others that could be. The name Maria was used as an example. Bobbi ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kathy Cochran" To: <hesse@rootsweb.com>; Sent: 23 January, 2011 4:16 PM Subject: Re: [HESSE] Hessian Dialect > Thanks for your comment, Brian. I understand "current distribution" as > opposed to 1836, or whatever. At least the name Giffels is relatively > rare, > not like the name BORN - which on a search brings up ANYONE who was "born" > on ____________ > Actually, I even have a ship manifest for this family - on the 19th of > August 1842 on the ship Sarah Schaefer the family came in to the Port Of > New > York. Hubert and Margaret Giffels, at the bottom of the page. It lists > "Prussia" - maybe. Looks like another VERY LARGE area to me. And I don't > know anything about Prussia. > > But it looks like we may have landed on the Borns in Alzey, Hessen. > Whoopee! > > Kathy