My last name is rich & some of my ancestors are from germany. how d?

Question

my father's ancestors came from germany. as far as i can tell, the last name was then either "ridge" or "reich" & changed to "rich" sometime after migrating here. how can i narrow down a genealogy search for my ancestors without having the knowledge of where they were from in germany or exactly what the last name was?

Answer 1

The German last names Reich and Reicher were often translated as Rich.

Ridge does not seem to occur as a German name, and I think it's more likely another Americanization/pronunciation/spelling of Reich

Answer 2

How'dy, yo' all. Make it all up to suit yourself. Get a German phone book and with a pin stab at pages and get names by chance. That should do you. It is the only answer for what you want to do. A real search demands maximum effort, something that is not up your alley.

Answer 3

Locate your father's family/ ancestors in census records. This gives you a time frame for when they immigrated. It can show in 1900/ 1910 census. When you have the date of immigration, you probably can locate the record itself, OR possibly a naturalization record.

If they immigrated prior to 1880, it might not be as easy, since the actual immigrant may not be living and show up in the census