The emigration-history of "Untersteller" to America

Two years ago I got an email from the 73-year-old Jack Understeller from Cincinnati, Ohio and his daughter Kathy. Looking for their ancestors, they found the 'Ensheim-Homepage' of a friend of mine, Mr.Paul Glass, which I referred to quite a few times. In Paul's category "Emigrants in modern times" my name and my email address are noted. Since then we are having regular contact. Kathy would be happy to have contact with more members of the "Untersteller" family (her email: dale01@adelphia.net).

Jack's Great- grandfather was a certain Nicholas Untersteller/ Understeller. At the moment we don't have his correct date of birth (probably 1812 or 1826). If the last date is right we are possibly talking about Nikolaus Untersteller, son of Johannes Untersteller, born on March 4th 1826. I don't have further information about him yet. But between 1778 and 1826 there are three more Nikolaus Untersteller that could be Jack's Grand-grandfather. We hope to get more accurate information from the planned look at the files of the archives in Madison, Indiana respectively from the research of passenger lists of emigration ships, which are also in archives or even open for the public on the internet. Nicholaus (Nikolaus) Untersteller probably emigrated to the United States sometime between 1844 and 1845.

Concerning the change of the name, I think that it was convenient during the 19th century to replace the "t" by an "d" and by doing that make it "Understeller". This is what I know so far: The wife of Jack's Grand-grandfather Nicholaus Understeller was a certain Eva Understeller (born 1812, died 1881). The graves of both of them can be found on the "Springdale Cemetery" of Madison, Indiana. Also buried there is a George Understeller (born May 17th 1839, died June 8th 1859). It is most likely that he was a son of Nicholaus Understeller and not his brother. But in that case we can eliminate 1826 as the possible year of birth.

Nikolaus, aswell as his wife Eva, and George are supposed to be born in "Preußen" (Prussia)- according to the US market software- program "Family Tree Maker", volume 6, tree # 552. After that in 1844 daughter Elisabeth was also born in Prussia (she died 1938 in Madison, Indiana), while 1845 the third child named Mary Understeller was already born in Madison, Indiana (she died 1900 in New York). Later they had three more children: May (born 1848), Frank (born 1849) and Eva (born 1855, died 1913). As soon as I have further information about this family I will add them.

During this research we ran into a John Understeller, who, during the American Civil War, reported voluntarily for the army in New York City on December 29th 1861. From that time there also existed a Carl Understeller, who reported to the army in Hudson City on September 28th 1861.

In the meantime I found two more "Understeller" while doing internet- research. Both of them are buried on the "National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific" in Hawaii, USA. We are talking about: