Hello to all: I would be very appreciative of any help you can give in researching my husband's maternal family. I'm a casual person at this genealogy thing; wishing I were better. This is what I have: I've found a ship manifest (Leipzig) for the following family members: Audr/or Andr KUBICH b. abt. 1845 PreuBen (I don't know how to make the proper character so I put in a capital B) Wilhelmine KUBICH b. abt 1847 PreuBen August KUBICH b. abt. 1874 PreuBen Emil KUBICH b. abt 1878 PreuBen The manifest gives little additional information; no job description or last home address. Oddly they list the "country of allegiance" which in our case is the "Balkins." What does that mean? I've asked this of others and they haven't a clue either. I'm constantly told that the last name is not German, per se, but possibly Polish. But I don't know for certain. And did the person writing the manifest misspell the name? The name KUBICH/OR KUBIC shows up in some of the Eastern European countries, such as Poland, Slovakia, Czech. And at Yad Vashim, they list a couple of Kubic's who died in the Holocaust. The obituary for August (d. 14 Dec. 1925 - Alexandria, Madison, Indiana, U.S.A. -- TB) listed him as Lutheran. No naturalization papers have been discovered as of yet for any family member. August's death certificate lists one parent and that name is Andrew. (What happened to his parents once they stopped in Chicago, IL? What happened to Wilhelmine and where is the death information?) . I should note that a wild search on Ancestry did pull up a record for August CUBICH naturalization records (Western PA). However, they list the date of immigration as 1888. So, the ship Leipzig departed Bremen and they docked in Baltimore, MD, on 20 Mar 1881. From there the family traveled westward as they show up one more time (all together) in Chicago, IL, with the same last name of Kubich. The 1900 census shows August as a KUBIC - married to Lillian, with children and with Emil living in their home (Indiana I believe). The 1910 census has Emil KUBIE/KUBIC married to Kate, with three children living in Swissvale, Allegheny, PA, U.S.A. Two censuses have discrepancies regarding the dates they arrived in the U.S. (one saying 1888 and the other saying 1890 I believe). I have so many questions with very little information to go on as I can't find "live" Kubic's to help me out. No pictures (other than one daughter and she died in 1930 - my husband's grandmother); no family; no homeland to go by; no other death information for the other family members. So, how do I go about finding out where in this place called PreuBen they came from? How do I find out what happened to Audr/Andr and Wilhelmine in Chicago? I've searched everywhere for another possible census for Emil with no luck - what happened to him and his family? I keep thinking that if I found Audr/Andr and Wilhelmine I would find the "homeland" information. And how to I find their naturalization papers? Again, thank you for your help! Judy Riley P.S. I had sent a letter to a Debbie Kubich (on the surname list) asking if she could help me with some info and I got a message back indicating she was not taking messages.