Not much activity here in the past decade, but with improved records I have been able to confirm connections from Patricia Jane Kiichli back to Antoine Kiichli, who emigrated from Alsace in 1853 via New York, eventually settling in the Duluth area with his two sons, Henry Antoine and Louis. Our lineage definitely runs through Joseph Louis Kiichli, who was a Minneapolis alderman and may have been a bit of a scoundrel. His sister Frances married a Piette, so we are definitely in the same lineage.
However, to my dismay, I have almost completely stalled out in trying to connect the Antoine/Louis/Henry Antoine trio back to Europe. I am pretty sure they came over together, as HA lists his year of immigration as 1853 in the 1900 census, and Antoine reports it as July 1853 on his Declaration of Intention for naturalization in 1870. HA would have been only 9 years old at the time, so I am sure these two came over together. Two data points on the same year is pretty strong evidence for the year of immigration. Not certain whether Louis was with them, but I suspect he was.
Antoine's declaration of intent notes the port of immigration as New York, which has pretty decent passenger records in this era, but to my dismay I cannot find any records that fit this trio.
Finally, I am reasonably certain that Kiichli is a corrupt translation of Küchle. So it's heavily ironic to have our family originate in Alsace with heavily French first names and a German surname.
If anyone finds leads that might help us make the leap back to Europe, please let me know.
Chris Carlson
peterpan@stanfordalumni.org