To understand why I was interested in Kolmbach, I will have to relate a little bit of history. When my ancestor Hans Gahr was married in Regensburg in 1570, he said he was a farmer from "Kolnpach". One can search all day and never find Kolnpach. Changing the "p" to a "b" is a natural, but still there is no Kolnbach. The next obvious thing to do is change the "n" to an "m", and this yields the name of a city in Germany. However, the location of this city is not appropriate for the history of the Gahr/Gaar/Gar/Garr family. My first break through was to find the name in a large German directory of place names which had two Kolmbachs. What it said fit the largest concentration of Gahrs who live in Germany in the southeastern part of it. Then I used a digital German gazetteer and it confirmed the location and added the information that it was a farm. I knew approximately where it was and I expected to find it by asking questions. Jost Gudelius solved the problem completely by giving me a detailed map which had the location on it.
First, we drove to Geratskirchen. Following the map, we drove about a mile out of town. As we drove along, a sign pointed to Kolmbach on a side road. Driving along this road the first house we came to had a sign saying Kolmbach. It is a country setting with farm land around it.
The next thing to do was to knock on the door. At first, I couldn't raise anybody, but eventually an elderly lady came to the door. She said no one was home and she did not want to talk to us. She obviously was very afraid. We left and drove on down the road another half-mile to the end of the road where there was another house. Calling on them, a younger lady responded and she confirmed that at Kolmbach the younger folk were at work and mother was home alone. While we were talking, the telephone rang. Eleanor made a little bet that it was from Kolmbach. And she was right.
Kolmbach may still have some farmland, but the inhabitants do not make their living that way. I do believe that this is the farm where Hans Gahr lived for a while though much modified through the centuries. Probably at one time, Kolmbach was larger than it is today. It was probably a farm where several families lived. It may have been comparable in size to some of the places that have grown into villages.
Friedrich Gaar, in Obermichelbach, says that the Gaars came from Austria and that they were forced out of the country. At Kolmbach we were only about fifteen miles from Austria. Finding any history earlier than 1600 will be difficult. There are conflicting reports as to where the Protestant records for Kolmbach are located. It is at least encouraging that someone says they are located somewhere.
Friedrich Gaar cannot trace his line back to Hans Gahr, but the family of Theodore Walker sponsored research which traces Andreas Gaar back to Hans Gahr. Based on other research of the Walker family, it is possible to trace Friedrich Gaar back to Hans Gahr, as an ancestor of Friedrich was a brother to Andreas Gaar of Germanna.
Having proved nothing except that Kolmbach does exist, and is a named location, we went on to Austria with a couple of objectives in mind.
(08 Jun 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.