A tip from the "Palatines to America" workshop in colorado this weekend was to
look in the online German telephone book, "Das Telefonbuch", for a surname to
see where it's most prevalent. Should the name appear clustered in some small towns or
villages, this could have been the the family's location for many generations.
German postal codes work much like US zip codes. The first two digitas designate a large
region & succeeding digits designate smaller portions of that.
Because migration within the country (juust as here) has been mainly from the countryside
to the large cities, clusters in places such as Berlin do not say much about ancestral
homes. Incidentally, to search a German online database for a name with the umlauted
"ä", one can substitute "ae". Or, hold down the "Alt" key
& type "132".
I tried it. The conclusion: The surname, by any spelling, is uncommon in Germany and
clusters are not apparent. I tried 4 variations: Keel, Kell, Schäll (all from
Strassburger-HInke), and Käll (a combination). I got a total of 11 listings throughout all
of Germany, whose population (I believe) is about 40 million. The most prevalent version
was "Schäll" with 5 listings.
Here are the postal codes, towns & counties: (Given names & telephone numbers are
deleted.)
Keel:
1) 91595 Burgoberbach
2) 82031 Gr6nwald
3) 26817 Rhauderfehn
Kell:
4) 22149 Hamburg (Large city)
5) 04420 MarkranstEdt (apparently commercial listing)
6) 54427 Kell am See (apparently commercial listing)
Schäll:
5) 49584 F6rstenau
6) (No town or postal code)
7) 31174 Schellerten
8) (No town or postal code)
9) (No town or postal code)
Käll:
10) 64665 Alsbach_HEhnlei...
11) 10707 Berlin (Lare city)
-ralph