So, last night I was poking around the "find a grave" website.
I'm too cheap to join the ancestry sites.

Well, more info has been added to some of my family (paternal side), and I was able to track back to my Great, Great, Great Grandfather...who died in 1911.
PLUS, there were two pictures, one of him and my Gr., Gr., Gr. Grandmother, and another of just him.
It also had info regarding his place of birth in Switzerland...which I thought they had come from Germany...but my sister confirmed that nope, it was Switzerland.
From there, I went to the Ellis Island site, and who knew they had a (free) searchable database!!
Well, I didn't find him.

Only 142 with the surname, and less if you excluded women.
I went back to my Great, Great, Great Grandparents on "find a grave" and started snooping
through their children, and one of them had info listed that she had come to America in 1850 with her parents...(score).
So, that took care of the immigration year...the Ellis Island searchable records didn't go back quite that far...
It also listed where they settled...and....*how about* it's not far at all from where I live!! Crazy!!
I then searched for the name of the settlement, and found a long write up about the original Swiss settlement, where they're buried.
It listed names as the settlement grew, and my maiden name was added to the surnames within the settlement in 1850, and it stated the same area/origin of immigration...so I'm taking that as a second source for the immigration time frame. (So interesting!!)
In fact, my Great, Great, Great Grandparents are buried in a tiny cemetery that is 10.4 miles from where I live!!
I know that there is a historian in our family who has gone back 6 generations (last I knew), but I haven't been to the family reunions to see the books she's put together...need to put that on my bucket list.
Anyhoodles, forgive me babbling on, but I just thought I'd share, I know Bobbi does genealogy, and I think Rachel has mentioned that she's into genealogy.

This is really my first dabble into it.
So....I know I've mentioned that I was from German heritage....well, nope...Swiss, and near the French border.

I looked online at some of the pics from the area, and oh my gosh, it's an absolutely gorgeous area!!