Hi Jan,
The best way to find the family is to know the town in Mecklenburg.
To find the town:
1. Find the immigration ship departure list from Hamburg
2. Find the local church in the U.S.
3. Find an obit
4. Get the death certs of all family members
5. Know other relatives and get same info
I see you have them in the 1900 census, did you find them in Kane Co or other?, I could
not find them. Can you tell me where you found them?
Have you found the family in the 1880 census? I took a quick look and did not see them.
These census info will help nail down the immigration year and other family members. In
my experience the immigration year given by the census can be a few years off.
Has anyone tried the Germans To America series? Since Moeller, Mueller, etc is so
common you would probably have to know who else he came with to nail it down. Possibly
finding the local church records in the U.S. would show the town and other members.
If you can find the ship in the Germans To America (GTA) then they would have likely came
out of the Hamburg Port. From this you could then order the Hamburg departure list that
shows the town.
The death certs will list the birthplace of him and parents if known also, and death certs of
his family members will list their parents birthplace if known.
Or if Lemke came from the same area you could find her family.
By the way Lemke and Mueller (Moeller) are very common surnames in Mecklenburg and
without finding the town it would be nearly impossible to locate them unless someone recognizes
them in their database.