Martin Abel, son of Michael Abel and Henrietta Scheiferstadt, was born April 26, 1822 (Michigan death certificate states 1824) in the part of Poland that Prussia annexed around 1790 and was called Posen. Martin had one sister Wilhelmina Abel who married Johann Ludwig Behnke on April 27, 1841 in Prussia and whose children settled in Grand Rapids and Dowagiac, Michigan, as well as South Bend, Indiana and Chicago. Wilhelmine is buried in Oakhill Cemetery in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Martin married Caroline Rode nee Czerwinska in 1846 in Prussia. (Michigan records lists last name as Roth but actual Lutheran Church marriage Records lists Rode.) They had 11 children (8 girls/3 boys) with 8 still living in 1900. The children were all born in or near the town of Jankendorf, Posen, Prussia, which today is called Sokolowo-Budzynskie, Poland.

Martin & Caroline arrived in the Port of Baltimore America on November 11, 1886. They were accompanied by their daughter Emma Ernestine Abel, age 18, and another relation, Gustav Abel, age 5. Their daughter, Johanna Caroline Pauline Abel, and son Charles Albert Abel had previously arrived in America on May 4, 1884. Their daughter Caroline married Gustav Julius Bohn in Galien, Michigan January 24, 1885. Gustav Bohn paid $90.50 for the ship passage of Caroline's parents to America. Passage was booked on the North Bremen Lloyd Steamship Company from Kolmar, Posen to Bremen to Baltimore, and onward to Dayton, Michigan by train. Charles married Emma E. Steinke on November 18, 1895 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and lived in Lowell, Michigan. Charles & Emma are buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Lowell, Michigan. Emma Ernestine Abel married August John Rackow in 1892 and lived in Grand Rapids. She is buried in Cleon Township Cemetery, Copemish, Michigan.