I am looking for the place Merscheid, Mitskidde or Meerkerk in the
district Cologne (Koln) in Germany from which my Forefather, Michael
Antonie Muller came in 1735 to settle in South Africa

Hello John

There used to be a Merscheid about twenty miles from Cologne. Nowadays
it is called Ohligs and is part of the city of Solingen. In about
1800, Merscheid was a small place with around 200 inhabitants. There's
a photograph of the late nineteenth century town hall of Ohligs on
Merscheid Street (Merscheider Strasse) here:
http://home.arcor.de/maramut/02arc/o1sgoh1.htm

Merscheid's principal trade used to be steel-working. In the early
18th century  there were many swordsmiths in the area, according to
the website with the picture above.

You can see where Merscheid was on a map which lets you zoom in and
out to relate Merscheider Strasse to the rest of Solingen, and
Solingen to Cologne:
http://uk.maps.yahoo.com/py/lg:uk/lc:uk/maps.py?BFCat=&Pyt=Tmap&newFL=Use+Address+Below&addr=merscheider+strasse&csz=solingen&country=de&Get%A0Map=Get+Map

If that link doesn't work, start afresh by filling in the boxes at:
http://uk.maps.yahoo.com

There is also a 19th century map showing Merscheid here:
http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/ravenstein/Large/Map4SW.pdf
(Merscheid is south-west of Solingen, south-east of Dusseldorf and
north from Cologne.)

You will need the Adobe Reader to view the map, and to enlarge it for
reading the smaller place names. If you don't already have it
installed on your computer, you can get it here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html


These are the websites I used to find this information:

"Notizen aus der Geschichte von Merscheid und Ohligs" - notes on the
history of Merscheid and Ohligs
http://home.arcor.de/maramut/02arc/o1sgoh1.htm

Ohligs joined with Solingen in 1929
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solingen

"Merscheid, unserem heutigen Ohligs" (Merscheid, now Ohligs)
http://www.studiengesellschaft-emsland-bentheim.de/Seiten/Biographien/Texte/Scheurmann.html

History of the area
http://www.ub.uni-duisburg.de/diss/diss0024/kap15c.pdf

Merscheid church information
http://ek-merscheid.wtal.de/chronik/

My research started with the names in your question, and then I used
searches combining Merscheid with:
Köln, Geschichte, Ohligs, Solingen, Nordrhein-Westfalen.

As well as using maps I already knew of, I found the historical atlas
by searching with:
german place names nineteenth century

I hope this helps with researching your family history, but please
don't hesitate to ask if you have any queries about my answer. Just
use the 'request answer clarification' button.

Best wishes - Leli

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Request for Answer Clarification by john1112-ga on 29 Nov 2003 12:46 PST

Would it be possible to ascertain whether Antonie and/or Michael
Muller (umlaut U) was born in Merscheid between 1708 and 1718?

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Clarification of Answer by leli-ga on 30 Nov 2003 00:32 PST

I'm delighted to say I've found a record at the FamilySearch
genealogical database run by the LDS church which says:

"Antonie Michael Muller

Birth:    1719 Meerscheid, Koeln Stadt, Rheinland, Preussen

Death     19 July 1768

Marriage  4 May 1768  Tulbagh, 
          Cape Of Good Hope, South Africa

Record submitted after 1991 by a member of the LDS Church. No
additional information is available. Ancestral File may list the same
family and the submitter."

FamilySearch - search page
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp

You might find more useful information on their site:
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/default.asp

If you want to do long distance research by writing to German
archives, you might find this article helpful:
http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/ancmag/1671.asp?o_xid=0039826023&o_lid=0039826023

Thanks for a great answer.
I will chew on it for a while before going further.

Thank-you very much for the nice tip and comments.

It was a pleasure doing the research.

Leli

Leli, You are a star.  With this information I may be able to trace my
ancestor's German family members.

Greetings
John Muller
Cape town SA