The January issue of Beyond Germanna , mailed a month ago, was devoted to the Gaar family, both in Europe, and in America. The ancestors of Andreas Gaar show a migration pattern across Bavaria, the most southeastern state of Germany. At the time of emigration, the Gaar family, of which Andreas was a part, was living in Illenschwang, a small village on the very western part of Bavaria. It would take a detailed map to find it. The next larger town is Dinkelsbuehl, a few miles to the west.
An earlier ancestor of Andreas lived in Regensburg, a town to the east of Illenschwang. When Hans Gahr was married there, he said he was from Kolnpach. As you might guess, there is no place in Germany with this name. Therefore one is forced to use his imagination and see what can be found. A close relative of Kolnpach is Kolmbach. The substitution of "-bach" for "-pach" is natural as the southern Germans and Austrians of that time liked the "p" as opposed to the "b".
Searching for Kolmbach in the general area of Regensberg does not yield anything in most indices either. To even find a mention of it, it was necessary to consult Mueller's Big Book of German Place Names (using an English translation of the German name). A general location was described there with an uncertainty of a few miles. Later, McCrea Research's " Digital German Gazetteer " was consulted and one of the two locations it cited did agree with Mueller. The digital gazetteer also identified this Kolmbach as a farm. This would be consistent with Hans Gahr's statement that he was a farmer.
The general location of Kolmbach is only a few miles, perhaps fifteen, from the Austrian border. Members of the Gaar family in Bavaria today say that the family originated in Austria. The evidence that I have seen so far is very consistent with this statement, but proof is lacking. If we assume for the moment that it is true, the pattern would seem to be that the family emigrated from Austria to the Kolmbach vicinity, then one branch went on to Regensberg, and then on to the vicinity of Illenschwang, where they were living when some of them made the leap, to the west, across the big pond.
This general migration pattern seems to hold for several of our Germanna families. They had a history of migration before they came to America. Klaus Wust has made this point in a Germanna Foundation seminar talk. We are aware of several families that went from Bavaria to western Germany, and then on to America. For some of these families, we are finding that they had an even earlier migration.
I will look more at the Gaar history in the next note.
(02 Feb 02)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.