I'm trying to take small bites out of my family's move from Germany to Canada to USA - Missouri. What I cannot seem to locate at this time is how Germans from Ontario, specifically Waterloo, would travel to the US.

I suspect they could have hit several German enclaves such as Toledo and Cleveland but so far all I can find are routes from Missouri going West, never any toward Missouri.

My thought is that the family hooked up somehow with river transport on the Ohio river to St. Louis and then on the Missouri river to Kansas City. I say river as rail really didn't make it out till after their arrival.

Timeframe is 1857-1858.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.