Thanks for trying! The first of the family members seem to have left for the US around 1848-1850 but they may have first gone through Canada since I have found one person in Canada with the family name. My great grandmother's sailing trunk (we think she arrived around 1853) is stenciled: "M. Hoffenbecher uber New Iork" (i.e., New York) so we think she came direct. However, she was a teenager at that time so she may have been traveling with relatives possibly not named Hoffenbacher. Bob in California