Liz, one thing that I think is good to keep in mind is that you have to try to think as someone who is new to the whole genealogy thing might think -- if Your family has "always" spelled their name Smith, would you know to go look at the Smithe or Smyth or Smythe list? because your answer could be lurking there in That list. Because maybe your family Did always spell their name that way, but your ancestor's brother, or the tax man, or the census info giver, etc., might not have.
In addition to this new one Wolfe mentions, at rootsweb (which is shared by ancestry message boards, as you probably know), go to this main page for the message boards;
http://boards.rootsweb.com/?o_iid=33216&o_lid=33216
and you will see Surnames -- BROWSE the list with the M names (or whatever any other family names) to see if there is more than one spelling for your name (I have found that almost any vowel that can be changed, it will be there that way).
My Schwertfeger name has an unbelievable number of message boards for the one name! (* see below) You can petition ancestry to merge them together, but in my experience, it doesn't work, they don't do it, and there are still too many, and I have to put my message at every one of them in case others don't know of the multiple spellings, or have the "my family always spelled it this way" attitude. And don't forget if you change your email address, you need to change those message board ones! There is a way to do this all in one shebang, but darned if I know what it is at the moment--it's somewhere there at rootsweb or ancestry on managing your account probably.
Do the same thing with the Localities categories, Browse them for the ones suitable to your family -- go to not only Germany to see what is available, look for the sort of special interest ones. I am amazed at some of them, like "Canadians who came to LA" type things.
I just went to Central Europe Categories and see Germany, but also "Historical Regions", several of which are ones like The Kingdom of Hannover, the Kingdom of Saxony. And leave a message under the general one of Germany, because maybe the people you need don't Know that their people came from Saxony.
Under Germany, I'd have to go on the advice of this list and other German lists as to where I should be posting, because Germany is pretty much a big mystery to me! and still very confusing. I would post them at Germany, Niedersachsen (even if it is in German--if someone sees their surname, they may go to the trouble of translating it), and even Saxony (because the people looking for you may not know about Lower Saxony), and any Wolf or anyone suggests.
Another forum where I got information I got nowhere else is www.genealogy.com. Under their Community section, I believe, are the message boards, and even if you do not pay to belong, you can post your message there--same thing: surname, locality.
A tip on searching at any site --One important thing I learned when I search now is to only search for my surname, if possible (not overwhelming numbers), and narrow it down to the county if necessary, or whatever smaller designation I can, or years. At the Rootsweb Family Trees section, e.g., I used to fill in all the blanks I could, and I'd get Nothing. Start backing off of your terms, til you only have the last name if necessary, and you might be able to tell by the spouse or the children or the parents in the results if it is yours. Maybe I'm searching for someone in the 1800s, and if I have narrowed it by years, I miss the person who posted the same guy in a much earlier or later timeframe because they just guessed at the years and are way off.
Hope some of this helps,
Nancy
* I cannot make the boards show me a search results today for some reason, but at one time there were these boards for Schwerdtfeger (and, of course, I am not certain that all of them are the same name, I could be off on a couple):
Schwertfeger, Schwerdtfeger, Swartzfager, Swartsfaer, Swartsfager,
Schwertbeger, Swatfigger, Swardfeger, Schwartz (one woman said her family
had give up and gone to this), Schwardfigure, Schwartfigure, Schwartzfigure,
Swerdferrers, Schwardtzfigure, Swerfeger, Swardfagure, Schwerdfeger,
Swartzsfaer, Swartzsfager