Searching for Wallruth

                          Chapter II

For all you Gibbs descendants who have been wondering how my
search for Wallruth is progressing, I have the following report:

After I wrote the story of my search for Nicholas Gibbs' birth-
place to include in Aunt Rosella's Festschrift in November 1979,
I sent a copy of the story to an officer of the Nicholas Gibbs
Historical Society, Miss Emma Dunn of Corryton, Tennessee, and
asked her if she knew of anyone in the Abraham Gibbs line who
might have more information about the origin of the Gibbs family
than our line had.  She sent me the address of James W. Green III
of Winnsboro, South Carolina, who thinks he might be descended
from a daughter of Abraham Gibbs.  At the end of March 1979 Mr.
Green sent me a letter with lots of hand-colored maps, photocopies
of passenger lists, hints on how to proceed, etc.  The most help-
ful information turned out to be the fact that his sources said
that Abraham Gibbs was born in Grumbach (Kreis Birkenfeld), which
is in the Palatinate.

A letter sent to Birkenfeld on April 10, 1979 requesting informa-
tion about the location of Wallruth was forwarded to Lauterecken
because that town is the seat of an administrative district to
which Grumbach now belongs.  The person in Lauterecken who handled
my inquiry couldn't give me any information other than the fact
that there is a place called Grumbach not too far from Lauter-
ecken but suggested that I write to the Staatsarchiv (state
archive) in Speyer.

Before I got around to writing to Speyer, I received another
letter from Mr. Green.  He mentioned that he regularly received
information from an organization called the Heimatstelle Pfalz
in Kaiserslautern each year but couldn't read it because it was
all in German.  He suggested that I write to them and see what
they do.  For once I didn't procrastinate.  I sent a postcard
right away and asked for information about the organization.  By
return mail I received a booklet that is put out by the Bezirks-
verband Pfalz.  Among other things, it describes the activities
and services of the Heimatstelle Pfalz.  Of most interest to me
was the fact that they have a file of immigrants and emigrants
from or to the area known in German as the Pfalz (English =
Palatinate).

On the same day that I sent by postcard to the Heimatstelle
Pfalz I wrote to the Landesarchiv in Speyer and told them the
story of Nicholas and Abraham Gibbs, Wallruth and Krumbach or
Grumbach.  If I had thought that I was now at the end of my
search, I was once again disappointed.  From Speyer came the
suggestion that I write to the Archiv der Evangellschen Kirche
im Rheinland, Archivstelle Koblenz, since they have  the church
books for Grumbach (beginning in 1761, according to the informa-
tion they had).
End of Page 1 and Start of Page 2
Even before I received the answer from Speyer, I had sent a
letter to the Heimatstelle Pfalz, outlining what we knew about
Nicholas and Abraham Gibbs and asking whether they were in the
emigrant files.  In their lette of June 21, 1979, they wrote
as follows (this is my own translation):
      "Dear Miss Brodersen:
      
      Thank you very much for your letter of May 31, 1979.
      
      Unfortunately, I cannot give you much information about
      your ancestors.  Only Abraham Gibs is listed in our
      emigrant files.  According to his file card the following
      information and dates are known:
      
      Abraham Gibs, born 1724 in the area around Grumbach
      Kreis Birkenfeld
      Date of marriage: 1753
      Settled in Frederick, Maryland, USA
      He died on March 29, 1784: his wife died befoe 1784.
      The couple had 9 children (a son was also named Abraham
      and was married to a Dorothea).
      That is, unfortunately, all.
      
      In our immigrants' files the name Gibbs or something
      similar is not listed.
      
      Sincerely,
      
      (Bärbel Schulz)
      
      P.S.: I could not find a place called 'Wallruth.'"


It seemed obvious to me that this information about Abraham Gibbs
was supplied by his descendants, and I was quite suspicious that
it had simply been incorporated into the files without any proof
that Grumbach was the birthplace.

However, I wrote to the Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche im Rhein-
land, Archivstelle Koblenz, on June 24 and asked them to search
the church records for Grumbach to see if the name Gibbs appeared
in any records of deaths, births, baptisms, or marriages.  Since
the Landesarchiv in Speyer had reported that the Grumbach church
books date back to 1761, it was obvious that neither Nicholas nor
Abraham Gibbs would appear in any of the records.  (Nicholas left
Germany in 1754, and Abraham left in 1748.)  However, I listed
what we knew about them (year of birth other spellings of their
name, when they left Germany) and the names of their father,
brother, and two sisters.  I offered to pay up to DM 50 without
prior notification and asked them to suggest what other church
books might be relevent for someone who had lived around Grumbach,
in case the Grumbach church records did not contain the name Gibbs.
End of Page 2 and Start of Page 3
On June 28 I found a letter from the Archives of the Evangelical
Church in my mailbox when I arrived home.  My experience in working
in a German office told me even before I opened the letter that
there were two sheets of paper in the envelope.  Since my letter
to the Archives was also two pages long and it is fairly common
for German government agencies to use the back of original letters
for their reply in cases when they don't have anything of impor-
tance to say, I was sure that I would find a short note in the
envelope telling me that no record could be found of the Gibbs
family.  You can imagine my surprise when I found the following
letter in the envelope (again, this is a translation of the original
letter):

      "Dear Miss Brodersen:
      
      Your letter of June 24 was handled right away.  Entries
      for Grumbach are found in the church books of Grumbach
      and Herren-Sulzbach.  Unfortunately, they do not have an
      index, so that they had to be searched page by page.  In
      the Grumbach church books, which do not begin until 1752
      (with gaps in the first years), there are no Gibbs entries
      in the baptism, marriage, and death registers up until 1790.
      On the other hand, there are such entries in the Herren-
      Sulzbach church books, which are, however, very incomplete.
      The marriage records are missing for the years 1715-1745;
      the baptism records are incomplete for the years 1720-1745.
      In these records I found:
      
      26 April 1695, marriage of Peter Gibes (88/1, p. 365)
      
      On January 9, 1729 Joh. Nickel Gibß and A. Maria has a
      daughter baptized (88/1 p. 136)
      
      Children of Peter Gibes:
       
            Johann Adam, baptized 18 March 1696 (now spelled Gibs)
            Johann Niclaß, baptized 20 February 1698 (now spelled
                                                            Gibs)
            Anna Maria, baptized 8 March 1700 (now spelled Gibs)
      
      No Gibs entries appear later in church book 88, as the
      index for 1758-1798 shows.  You are being sent excerpts
      of the underlined information.
      
      Sincerely,
      (H. Schüler)
      
      Fee for a search of the records:  DM 19.00
      2 excerpts                            6.00
      Postage                               0.60
                                        DM 25.60"
End of Page 3 and Start of Page 4
Although the excerpts were fairly complicated and even Germans
had trouble understanding them, I think that the following
translations are fairly accurate.  However, I plan to have
someone who is more knowledgeable in this area that I am
check my understanding of them when I can find the time.

      Excerpt from the Lutheran church book of Herren-Sulzbach
      from the year 1695
      
      "On April 26 Peter Gibes, legitimate son of the late
      Herman Gibß, former resident of Sien, and Anna Maria,
      widow of Sebastian Stüber, formerly a Gemeinsmann in
      Puporn, were united in marriage."
      
      Excerpt from the Lutheran church book of Herren-Sulzbach
      from the year 1729
      
      "On Jan. 9 Joh. Adam Gibß and his wife A. Maria
      A daughter (was) baptized M. Magdalena.
      
      Witnesses: Joh. Adam Klein, Nickel Lucas, Anna Margaretha
      Lucasin, Anna Catharine Hönin."


You undoubtedly noticed that three spellings of the name Gibbs
are found in just these short entries (assuming, of course, that
the person who did the research deciphered the handwriting cor-
rectly: Gibes, Gibs, Gibß.  The sound represented by "ß" is an
"s" sound.

The following information may interest you:  The word "Gemeins-
mann" in the 1695 record is not in my dictionary, and the few
people I have had a chance to ask are not sure what it means.
It might just be a word for one of the classes of residents of
a town, or it might indicate a position in the town groveernment.
"Puporn" is now called Buborn.  The "in" endings of the names
of two of the witnesses to the baptism are feminine endings
that were sometimes added to the masculine form of a name.  Thus,
Anna Margaretha Lucasin is most likely the wife of Nickel Lucas.

I don't think that there is any doubt that the Johann Niclaß
Gibs who was baptized on February 20, 1698 is the father of
the Nicholas Gibbs who came to America in 1754 and the Abraham
Gibbs who arrived in America 1748.  This means that we now
know the name of Nicholas Gibbs' mother (Anna Maria) and one
set of grandparents (Peter Gies or Gibs and Anna Maria).  We
also know the name of an aunt and uncle (Anna Maria and Johann
Adam.  With any luck, we may be able to fill in a few more details.
I have already written to the archives to ask them to search the
church records of Sien and Buborn.  I see that I forgot to mention
that we also know that Nicholas Gibbs' great-grandfather was named
Herman.  If the church records from Sien still exist and go back
that far, we may be able to find out something about him or about
his wife and other children.  As I mentioned at the end of Chapter
One, there is no end to trying to hunt down your ancestors.
And I still want to find out where or what Wallruth was.
Martha Brodersen
 Ulrichstrasse 16           Martha Brodersen
 714 Ludwigsburg             July 5, 1979  
  West Germany