Summer 2003: a group of 40 German-Americans from Loose Creek, Missouri travel to Germany. They are on a search for their roots and will find them in a farm in the Rhineland. One-hundred-fifty years ago, the Münks farm was the birthplace of their ancestors.

For German emigrants in the 19th century, America offered hope in a new beginning: the hope of escaping poverty, years of failed harvests, and political repression. Thanks to romanticized ideas, millions of Germans start off for the unknown. It is the great century of emigration—and for agents,