The Gibbar Family
Schorbach
Moselle, Lorraine, France
The following information was made available to us through the work of Robert Gieber of Des Moines, Iowa who, in 1973, traveled to St. Remi Parish in Schorbach, France, and painstakingly copied hundreds of church records of the Gieber and related families. He has compiled his findings into "The Gieber-Gibbar Family Register" from which the following has been compiled.
Our Gibbar ancestry is rooted in the small town of Schorbach, located in the northeastern part of France in the former province of Lorraine, Department of the Moselle. The town dates back to approximately the eighth century.
Although Schorbach is part of France, it's history has been marked with several occasions of German domination. The people of the region have generally considered themselves German speaking Frenchmen and have traditionally been firm resistors to Prussian and German incursions.
St. Remi Church
Schorbach, France
During the Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648), Schorbach was essentially destroyed, leaving only four survivors. The Duke of Lorraine established a program to attract people to the area and it at that time that our ancestors, the Giebers, probably arrived in the region, possibly from Lorraine, Burgundy, Switzerland or Austria.
St. Remi Parish of Schorbach, consecrated in the year 1143, is the location of many of the early records of the Gieber Family, the first entry of which occurs in 1739. The name appears in many forms, including Gypper, Gipper Guber, Guper, Kypper, Kippert, Giber, Guiber, Guibert, Gippert, Guibber and Gieber. The parish records document that the Giebers of Schorbach were masons, stone-cutters, wooden shoe makers or laborers.
The 1800s saw two main migrations from Schorbach to America; first in the 1830s and then again around the time of the Franco-Prussian of 1870 when many people preferred to leave rather than serve in the Prussian army. It was during the first migration that our ancestor, Jean Nicholaus Gieber and his brother Peter and their families left Schorbach for America.
The Schorbach area became famous as a hog-producing region and was well-known for its sausage, the inhabitants known as "sausage eaters" because they often took their long sausages with them when traveling to nearby fairs or picnics.
The town contains an ossuary (bone house) that dates to the 12th century. Graves or stone or (later) cement were reused after one or more generations and the bones collected at piled in the bone house, sorted by type of bone, with the skulls stacked on top. The ossuary is, however, no longer in use.
During World War II, Schorbach residents were forced to evacuate the town by the Germans. Able bodied men were forced to enlist in the German army while women, children and old men were sent to camps in the interior of occupied France. The town itself was used as target practice and was virtually destroyed. The ossuary, however, survived. The town was liberated on March 16, 1945. Where the Gieber house once stood is currently a garden plot.
