Dear Greg, I have a gr-gr-grandfather who came from Prussia. Generally speaking, the German-speaking countries kept very good records. You might want to go to a genealogical library and get a copy of "Germans to America," which gives extracts of ship records. You should be able to find your ancestor listed on a ship's manifest. That way you will know the date he arrived in the U.S., the name of the ship, the ports of departure and arrival, and whether he was accompanied by his wife and/or any of his children. Remember that these are extracts, not original records, so they're not always completely accurate. But it's a start. Public records can be a help. I found out the name of the village my gr-gr-grandfther was from by getting a copy of the birth certificate of the first child born in the U.S. The name of his village (not just "Germany" or "Prussia," which he used for later children) was on this certificate. If the U.S. locality you are searching doesn't have civil records but you know the family's religion, you can find the same information in church records once you narrow down the local church of baptism. Once you know the name of the village of origin, you can go to the Mormon genealogy site on the Internet and look up the locality in the research library index. If you find the village and there is a film number forcivil and/or church records, you can go to the nearest Family History Center and order the microfilm for a nominal fee. Then the fun part comes--searching the microfilm for your ancestors! Hope this helps. I was able to go back to 1600 with just one microfilm. A. Graf