JEKEL/JECKEL Family

Hello all,
I'm new to the list here, and hoping to find some help. I'm researching my
great-great grandparents John (Johann) JEKEL and his wife Barbara. They
left Prussia in 1847 and settled in upstate NY.
The surname had so many variants after the family came to America, that I
truly don't know how the
name was spelled in the old country. These variations include such
spellings as JEKEL, JAKEL, JAEKEL, JAECKEL, JECKELL, JECHELL, JECKEL - you
get the idea...

I've got a ton of information on the family, including ship's manifest,
naturalization records, censuses, property records, obituaries, etc, but ALL
of them are generic in that they say only that the family came from Prussia
(or sometimes they just say Germany). There is nothing specific to a
village, which has made the research very difficult outside of America.

My reason for posting here is to try to find others researching the family
surnames I've listed, and hopefully find the ancestral home!

Thanks to all who might have some help with this.

Joe

Hello Joe,
This is not very encouraging news: there are 4047 Jae /German ae
Umlaut/ckel, 509 Jeckel, 536 Jekel, 3 Jekkel listed in the current German
telephone directory: it's a name of endearment for Jakob. If you can't come
up with more than 'Prussia' on your ancestor, I don't think there's much
chance.
Regards
Lutz Szemkus

That name was found frequently in Schlesien (Silesia)