Marilyn wrote: Paul has found Allenfeld which is about 45 miles from Koblenz. He suggests that Dorter is a corruption of DORDER of which there are quite a few in the German phone book. Me: My idea that this particular Allenfeld is your target location must be seen only as a possibility. It is unusual that it is listed after the larger entity (city) of Koblenz. It's worth pursuing but I haven't been able to find a way for you to pursue it. I couldn't find a website for Allenfeld from which you could glean an email address nor could I find the existence of microfilm. Best suggestion is to try the Rheinland-Pfalz or other Palatinate list. I would not say that Dorter is a corruption of Doerder. They are likely the same surname and the latter is the way it is spelled by modern Germans with that surname. But you should continue to search using both options as well as using other phonetically similar spellings such as Doerter and maybe even Toerter/Toerder. 42 listings in the modern Germany online phonebook is a small number and indicates a rather rare surname. That's good compared to the poor soul looking for Meier or Schmidt. There appears to be no Doerders living in the areas around Allenfeld or Koblenz today which is a little suspicious whether my place suggestion is valid. Going back to surnames, I don't think of them as a spelling but a pronunciation with all spellings that match as being correct possibilities. Once you get the pronunciation, you can then get the spelling variations to keep in mind as you search. As time goes by, the variations are reduced as families agree upon how they will spell the name. Therefore, you will see less variation today in Germany than in the past. Since you are searching in the past, expect more variations. Hence, today's single option Doerder could very well be spelled several ways in church books and other old documents. When the name crosses linguistic borders, it evolves and you get more variation. If you look in large surname databases, FamilySearch.org for example, you'll see the variations because it uses a soundex system to find them for you. I think you'll find that Dorter/Doerter is more common outside of Germany than is Dorder/Doerder in FamilySearch. The oe (o with umlaut) was dropped because it's not an English vowel and the t after r was retained or changed to t because the t and d sound the same in that position. More than you wanted to know, I'm sure. Cheers, Paul