One handicap is that I don't live in the state where my ancestors had lived. So I can't easily go and look up things myself. I had asked someone to search for a death cert in the State Genea Library for Josef between 1878 - 1880 but none was found. I think an early doc would have the most chance of showing a city of origin.

They had sailed from Bremen but my understanding is that the Bremen records were lost. The ship list of their arrival in the US only states they came from Bohemia.

I will try those sites, thanks.