Where does the name come from

Some people believe the Mikles where Dutch and came from Holland or the Netherlands. That is very unlikely, because "Mikles" is definitely a Slavic name - probably Hungarian. "Mikles", "Miklos", "Miklas" are wide-spread surnames there.

An explanation for the "Dutch-Story" could be, that Holland is on the north-west coast of Europe and was a good starting point for emigrants to move to America in the last centuries.

All earliest known Mikles in my family line have always lived in a formerly German territory called "Schlesien" (English: "Silesia"). That is why they had no Slavic first names but German first names like the first known "American-Mikles". After World War II the Agreement of Potsdam by the victorious powers assigned Schlesien to Poland.

In 1998 I found old parish registers in the German State Archive. The records are from the village "Schönwald" belonging to the county seat "Rosenberg", where all my ancestor came from. The closest larger town is "Breslau". (Look at the maps: Europe [overview] [details])

In these old records from 1661 to 1731 are notes about Mikles with German first names. They where born and married in the same village where my family line began in 1855. It is save to say that the Mikles I found are related to them.

According to my researches my family is the only German Mikles family. Just as my Mikles ancestor always had German first names, the first Mikles in America had German first names. In all probability today's American Mikles are a branch of my old German Mikles family tree with roots in Old Germany's "Schlesien".