According to Ancestry.com, Hober is an occupational name for someone who lifts heavy loads. "Heben" means "to lift" in German. I don't know if one of my ancestors had the job of lifting heavy loads or not, but I can trace the Hober branch of my family ancestry back to my 8th great grandfather Oster Hober (1625-1690). Oster was married to Afra (1630-1693) and looking at their dates, they must have had some good genes to live that long in the 1600's. Oster and Afra lived in the town of Staudt (see photo above) in the Rheinland Pfalz area of Germany (not too far from the Rhine River). Yes, I do have a cruise on the Rhine River near the top of my "bucket list".
Oster and Afra had 8 children (or at least 8 that I have found in my research): Johann (1650), Johann Georg (1653), Peter (1655), Margaretha (1660), Christian (1661), Andreas (1663), Gregarin (1670) and Elizabeth (1675).
Some of the eldest son Johann's descendants changed the spelling of their surname to Hoefer and immigrated to the United States, settling in Iowa and South Dakota. The midwest was not the final destination of some of the Hoefers, who also eventually moved West -- to Oregon, Washington, California and Colorado. Other surnames of these descendants were Merkes, Muehl, Tressel, Koenig and Velder. I have a lot of information and a lot of names for Johann's descendants, possibly because they immigrated to the US.
For the other siblings of Johann (except for Gregarin), I haven't been able to trace their descendants for more than a 2 generations and the trail stops in Germany. It will be interesting to find out if any of them also immigrated to the America.
Next up: Gregarin Hober
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