Hi Betsy! Anhalt was a duchy from 1863 to 1918: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhalt in 1855 when the Pistorius brothers emigrated to the US it was a duchy of the German Confederation called Anhalt-Bernburg, ruled by the House of Ascania with its residence at Bernburg in present-day Saxony-Anhalt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhalt-Bernburg Brandenburg in 1855: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Brandenburg > Can anyone work out what city they came from with this information? Sorry, no city either in Anhalt-Bernburg, Brandenburg, Prussia or Germany, maybe the brothers were born somewhere in the Province of Brandenburg (was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia) and went to and lived in the neighboring Duchy of Anhalt-Bernburg (not belonging to Prussia) before they emigrated. Biskirchen is now a part of the little town of Leun in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis which was partially a part (exclave) of the Rhine Province in Prussia in the 1850s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine_Province HAPPY NEW YEAR !!