[pfdietz]

My patrilineal ancestor came over somewhere around then (or, at least, between the end of the Civil War and then, records are not clear). It would be nice to trace that back into Germany but records don't seem to be easily available, if they even exist.

[fusslo]

My Aunt spent her 'empty-nester' years tracking down our family. She found the immigration records and went back as far as the Habsburg monarchy. She went to the village where her grandfather was born and looked into the town's records.

She found people who looked exactly like her brothers (my father and my uncle)

To her, it was like a religious experience.

When she returned she said the village kept birth & marriage records to make sure new marriages were 'far enough apart'. I don't know if that's true, or just some color she put on the story.

I just tried looking up my last name on https://www.familysearch.org and got over 1.2M record results. daunting!