Obviously all living Genkel's in US have their roots in Europe and had emigrated from here by ship. One of these emigrants was Christian Joachim Friedrich Genkel, who decided to permanently leave Germany in 1866.
Of course he didn't take this step by itself, but he took all his family with him. This included his wife and his three children. Besides his mother-in-law, whose husband had died two years before, came with them to their new adopted country.
On November 12th, 1866 the family Genkel did arrive abord the "SS Saxonia" (see picture) in New York. They found their new place of residence in Rochester. There they got another three children within the following years.
Christian's daughters gave up the name Genkel with their wedding, and from his two sons only Walter Genkel was married. We don't know if there are descendents from this marriage.
We don't know details, but it's for sure that there were other Genkel's immigrated into America, both before and after Christian did. E.g. Charles Genkel is the oldest known Genkel there, who was already mentioned in Minnesota before 1800. So the research is nowhere near finished.
We found indications to Genkel's in following states: