Hello Sandy, I have a couple of ideas for you.. . I poked around and found a few websites to pursue your names and information on name research; http://christoph.stoepel.net/geogen/en/Default.aspx you put in a surname and it will give you a map of name distribution in Germany and where, mostly current names but maybe you can find someone in the phonebook from the region listed and write a letter, there are always people on German mailing lists that will translate a short letter for you so you can send in both German and English. There are 26 LYNN listings, not Darmstadt? some Frankfurt, some Berlin. ..you would have to go look them up in a German phone directory but at least that tells you there are some listings by that name. . you could also put in the name variations as well http://members.cox.net/hessen/index2.htm Don, who runs that website, speaks English and may be a good person to write to and ask for suggestions where to go, since it appears he specializes in Hesse research; he has lots of links on his site for German mailing lists, mostly German, but maybe he can suggest how to get around the language issue if he knows some of the moderators firsthand. I'm on a couple of mailing lists that are German only, for different areas of Germany, I don't understand German, but eventually I find someone on the list who is willing to help me post or offer assistance some other way. One of the sites he has linked on his site, appears to be German only but is a list specifically for name research so maybe that's where you need to go, if there's an English way. . .I personally have found that local and specialized mailing lists are really the most helpful for Germany, mostly of the easily accessibly info just doesn't help that much with these brick wall type issues. http://forum.ahnenforschung.net/ I just discovered that site today, so maybe there's more other links on there that would be good. . . Also try www.progenealogists.com as they have some really good websites for information on local street guides and some links how to search certain areas; I notice they have some links for Hesse-Darmstadt; it's been one of the best websites I've found for local information on parishes that you may identify if you find a surname in the LDS catalog. Also try Genealogy.net; there are so many links in there and information on various parts of Germany; I keep discovering new pockets of information that I hadn't previously discovered, it's a little tricky to navigate, for me anyway, to find everything that's in there. Right now it's not coming up with putting in that name directly, I think you have to use the German spelling, maybe someone else on this list knows exactly how to spell it. . . Also, you may want to consider the possibility that if the name was Americanized, it may just have been shortened; I was looking for the Schoen in a certain parish record and found it as Schoenrath in the original record, so go figure. . . Hopefully that helps, . . ??? Pam in CA