Hi Listers, Having a day off, we determined to spend it, or some of it, productively at the Public Library. Our g-grandfather, John Schmitt, passed away in 1911 and his death cert. listed Bavaria as his birthplace. Today we looked for, and found, the newspaper obit of his brother George Schmitt who died in 1926. Not only did it give his place of birth as Rulzheim but it also noted that the service would be held at the home of his nephew (my grandad) also John Schmitt.As I am usually too ready to believe everything I read, the mention of the service made this bit of info bulletproof. The upshot of my little success was an afternoon firing up search engines and in the course of doing that I came across a host of Seelingers who came to Erie from Rulzheim. And the surname lists from that locale looked like they might have come from a local Erie phone book. It seems that Rulzheim packed people off to Erie like we send people to Casino Niagara! If anyone of German descent from Erie has not yet made that leap across the water, a look at this little town may be rewarding. BTW, the u in Rulzheim has two dots over it(umlaut?) and is sometimes followed by an e. Best wishes to all of you...Joe