Hi Charlie, am back from a wonderful trip to Austria. Wish I'd had the resources to trek over to Alsace. Was dying to go there but could not. I did do some checking in Vienna and found indications of strong support for Hofbauer/hoffbauer name being mainly an Austrian name tho many are in Bavaria, which of course aslso was part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. Did much Historical study on the times of the 1700s in the whole region so as to make some better guesses about things. So I will be spending time with names hofbauer/hoffbauer in the whole region. But wanted you to know that my research into Marie Charlotte is paying off. I have dates and places for her relatives that came to LA and am following those up with lots of letters to various families. Even found some information on why Catherine Perillard came and am waiting for the documents on that. Apparantly there is some information on one of her husbands comning. I also am following up on how and why Adrien Amable Quevillon came. She must have come with either of the these families although right now dates showing them in LA are later than her marriage date. How was the marriage date of 1774 determined? Also, have you come across anything showing that THomas or Marie attended any events with the Quevillons? Or the Quevillons/Couvillons attending any cerimonies of theirs? Once again (I know I have asked you this) why have we not found any records of Thomas and Marie Charlotte's deaths? were they also destroyed in a fire? Finally, does anyone have written docs ie journals or diaries of the family written in the early or any time in the 1800s? You once mentioned a family bible. How far back does that go? Can I get any photocopies of the entries? Once again, I commend you on all the fine work. Seeing the docs on the website is great. One signature is interesting as I see it having a b which could look like a p. Barbara's comments about the spelling are most interesting. I wrote her that the spelling matter is fascinating to me since I have similar problems with my name, Schafbuch. As you can see I have the same letters and many times, especially when I am verbally spelling my to someone, they most often put an s for the f and a p for b. Looking forward to hearing from you and I hope we get to meet up soon. Linda Get your Free E-mail at http://alsace.zzn.com ___________________________________________________________ Get your own Web-based E-mail Service at http://www.zzn.com