[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Zelmer ( Zellmer)

[BRENT ZELMER]

Hello,

Looking for help and If anyone else has done research on our family name. I have gotten back farther than we had but am now stuck. Here is what I have to date:

The furthest back i have is a marriage date from the Odessa site 13 Dec 1861 between Wilhelm Zelmer and Caroline Kruger. There is no mention of any Zelmer entries prior in these files although they do go back into the 1830's So I have to assume that the family was not in Volhynia much prior to 1860. Germany? Poland? I'm not sure where to start looking for a birth place for Wilhelm? They would have had to come from Germany at some point. The area of interest is about 25km north of Rivne (Rovno) The villages listed with the aboves children are all within several km's of each other.

they are:
Friedrichsdorf ( solomka )
Oleksandriia   (aleksandria)
Marzelinhof
Maraiandorf
Chotinka

the first two are of the most interest as they are the birth place of my Grandfather and great grandfather.
I was over to ukraine in Oct 2010. hoping to find cemetary stuff but to no avail. if anyone needs info about travel in this area i can provide info.
perhaps i should have went into Rovno and attempted to find records  I did not sadly.
Has anyone else found a means of tracing the path on how your families ended up in Volhynia??
if so please share.

Thanks in advance for any help and pointers.

Brent Zelmer