THE HOBERS

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

SO MANY HOBERS

For the past 10 years, I have sorted my notebook collection of family history documents by first name.  Yes, I know that is a bit odd but it worked (or seemed to work) for me.  In December, I read a few blogs where the authors discussed re-visiting their family history information.  This got me thinking and I decided it was time to re-organize my 10 or so large notebooks and file the documents according to "family branch" instead of first name.  How much time could it take, right?

So, I started with the Chambers, and using my "Descendants of Thomas Chambers" document as a guide, I found that those documents fit into one large notebook.  Wow, this is easy, I thought! Next came the Sherlocks, and even though it took 2 notebooks for them, it was still rather easy.

Okay, so let's see what other small family branch I could work on next. I had completed (or at least was under the impression that I had) my "Descendants of Oster Hober" document, which was 27 pages so that should be relatively easy.  The problem, I found out quickly, was that I wasn't completed with a lot of the sub-branches in my research.  How can there be this many Hobers, Hoefers, Gebhards, Muehls, Koenigs and Yegges?  Every time I think I am almost done, a whole bunch more crop up!  Now that I have been working on this for the past two weeks, I am hoping it is now under control.

The good news is that I am finding some interesting stories.  Stay tuned for those in future blog posts!

KATHOLISCHE FRIEDHOF WIRGES

So for the past week, I have been researching the names of the 212 people listed as being buried at the Katholische Friedhof Wirges cemetery in Wirges, Germany (according to Findagrave.com).  I have learned some new things both about the town of Wirges and about my ancestors who lived there.

Wirges is located in Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate area of Germany (western Central area of Germany -- not too far east of the Rhine River).  Its population is now about 5,000.  I have no idea how many people were living there when my ancestors were alive.  I need to find some history of Wirges.   To the southwest of Wirges, is the town of Dernbach (birthplace of my Nebgen family members), to the southeast is the town of Staudt (many of my Hober relatives lived there) and to the east is Bannberscheid and Moschheim (where Hober relatives also either moved or were born).  Actually it was rather exciting to find so many ancestors in such a small area.

Of the 212 names listed for this cemetery, I can prove some family relationship with at least 107 of them.  Now there are 28 additional people who have the name Hober but I can't quite fit them into my family tree yet.  What I find interesting is that these Hober's are more current (from the 1800's) vs. the Hober's I know that are related to me (who are from the 1600 and 1700's).  Usually I have the opposite problem -- can see the relationship of more current people but not so much those ancient ancestors.  I guess it is a good problem to have!

Wirges (and even more specifically this cemetery) is now on my "bucket list".  Supposedly the graves of my 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th great grandparents are located there.  How could I not want to go?  I could also visit the nearby town of Dernbach (home town of my Nebgen's) while I am there.

Well, back to my research ....