I got the pleasant today' s task to welcome all of you, who have in their majority come a long way, if not a very long way to this meeting. I am doing this as well in the name of Siegfried Engelbach, who planned this Engelbach-meeting. We are pleased to also welcome those who were not able to be here yesterday evening.

Please allow me to introduce a person among us, who is known to almost all of us, at least her name: Ellen Engelbach-Pankenier. It has been mainly her suggestion to come to Germany to a worldwide meeting of holders of our common surname (EWWR - Engelbach/Englebach/Engleback World Wide Reunion) with a big group of american fellow-countrymen. Our today's meeting is the proof for an idea having been hunted with enthusiasm can become reality. Thank you Ellen.

Ellen was looking for nameholders, and with the help of her computer she found many in all directions and contacted them. I learned from her that there are even in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England and France people living with our name, even if it has been transformed because of the conditions of the language: Englebach or Engleback.

The place of this unique gathering could only have been the village in Oberhessen, with which we all have the name in common: Engelbach.

I am glad to seeing you all here today (what shows that the efforts of the preparation are paid) and I hope, we will have a good time together over here and especially in Engelbach. Sure there will be difficulties in communicating because of so many different languages, but we will better face this problem with humor! To ease the communication between you, there will be two young ladies at your disposal. Please let me introduce to them who don't know them yet Anne Martin and Dunja Ardjomand.

Unfortunately, the number of the Engelbachs coming from Germany is very small. There are summer holidays over here at the moment and many families are on vacation. They are maybe thinking of us and our meeting right now in Austria or Spain, or whereever they spend their holidays. Others are in duty during the week and will therefore not be here until tomorrow.

In the following there will be reported about the origin of the familynames and their meaning. And finally there will be given the addresses of the Engelbachs in the old states of Germany, the USA and Great Britain - there have not been existing directories in the former DDR.

Klaus Engelbach from Assenheim and his son Horst have first of all written to 70 Engelbachs in the USA, to find out, if there are living next relatives. They knew that two brothers of the great-grandfather of Klaus had emigrated to Baltimore in the middle of last century. 13 Engelbachs answered and Klaus received extracts of birth- and other registers giving the names of immigrated Engelbachs. There could nothing be found out about the two brothers of his great-grandfather but their sister Emma appeared in Baltimore, whose fate had not been known until then. Birth- and christening dates are correct even the the christening church - the townchurch of Giessen!

There have been registered 18 million households of the former "Western" German Republic in the familybook. There are 167 with the name Engelbach (approximately 560 persons). This means that almost every onehundredthousandth person in Western Germany was called "Engelbach".

135 households of 167 given "Engelbach-households" are in Hessen and Nordrhein- Westfalen, 70 of them near to the village Engelbach!

There have been found 70 families with the name Engelbach in the USA, which are approximately 230 persons. At a population of approximately 230 million inhabitants in the USA, every millionth inhabitant is called "Engelbach". Of that, 12 families with about 40 persons are living in the state Maryland. The port of the capital Baltimore has been called at from many emigrator ships from Germany in the last century. As Maryland has only got 4.2 million inhabitants, every onehundredthousandth inhabitant is called "Engelbach" - as well as in Western Germany.

Let me tell you something about the visit of american Engelbachs:

Dawn Engelbach from Baltimore, 15 years old, whose grandfather had died early and who came with her grandmother Christina, her second husband Klaus Engelbach to our place in June 1994, has always been a shy girl. But when she saw the townplate "Engelbach" she got happy and said, this was her "hometown", Klaus was suddenly her grandfather and she hugged him.

Ellen Engelbach from Sunlakes, Arizona visited this place with her friend and Klaus in July 1994. They filmed and took pictures of some houses and there occupants, talked with their american english to people, ate at Kunerts, found everyone and everything nice - especially Mr. Kempe, the reporter of the local newspaper and Siegfried Engelbach. But they have been disappointed by the cemetery - they had expected ancient tombstones with the name Engelbach on them. They had thought that there must be a lot of persons called Engelbach in Engelbach.

Name, says a saying, is sound and smoke.

It does not matter how you are called. At least are you not responsible for your name. You get the surname automatically, your parents give your name to you, mostly with the influence of family tradition.

The name "Engelbach", which you can call a beautiful name, has as well as other names an origin and a meaning, even if both can not be found in history.

What we know is that family names are hereditary. The praxis of hereditary surnames comes out of the 10th or 11th century, they are known since the 8th/9th century in Italy. In the year 1250, the hereditary surname has been known in the region of today's Germany, except of some parts. Many names have had Germanic origin, for example Hildebrand, later they used christian names.

Very often has the origin something to do with name of the profession, for example Baker, although there have been bakers in every village which does not mean they have been kindred.

The name could have also been a characterization of the first nameholder, for example Klein (small) or Uruuh (restlessness). Or a surname diverted from the fathers name, for example Petersen.

And finally, as with us Engelbachs, the name of a place. But it would not have made any sense, if all inhabitants of Engelbach had suddenly the surname "Engelbach". It would have made sense for those who moved from Engelbach to Biedenkopf. They would have been "Engelbacher" (from Engelbach).

It would be nice if the origin of the surname was the village in Oberhessen, especially since it is the only place in Germany called Engelbach.

But there had never been existing a person called Engelbach in this village. Solely in Dexbach had been living my ancestor Volpert Engelbach in spring 1629, which is written in the parochial register of Dautphe ( no trace of profession. name of his wife nor number of children). His son Johannes went to Wollmar as a smith-apprentice in 1652, became later a schoolmaster like his later father in law Jacob Hüster. They founded the Wollmarer bough of the Engelbachs. Nevertheless, those are not wrong who call the village Engelbach the origin of their family, is it not far from Biedenkopf or Dautphe, the proveable historic places of holders of that name at the beginning of the 16th century.

The register-index of the first protestant University in Marburg, founded in 1527, contains four times the name Engelbach in the 16th century. The first, Volprecht, matriculated in 1534, had been 20 years old at that time. He was to convey the parish Dautphe, as first post reformered parson in troubled times for 28 years in from 1535 on. It is also Volprecht who is mentioned in the Wollmarer familychronicle of Johann Jakob Engelbach of 1697 to be the first known ancestor and first Engelbach at all.

The second, Caspar "Tautfeensis" (which means from Dautphe), matriculated in 1547, must have also been around 20 years old. They guess him and Volprecht have been brothers but it can not be proved. Caspar was schoolmaster from 1558 to 1564 in Ziegenhain, from 1565 to 1568 parson in Heidelbach near to Alsfeld. About his date of death nothing is known but he must have died before 1589. From this year on his wife received widow's allowance.

The third, Caspars son Johannes "Biedencapp" (from Biedenkopf), born in 1565, matriculated in 1579 in pedagogic, the pre-school of university, was a parson in Klein-Karben/Wetterau from 1587 to 1641 and is the grandfather of Georg Engelbach, who went to Strasbourg as a student in 1649 to study theology, married in 1655 and thereby founded the france line, whose representatives are here today. I can not give any information about the fourth, Johann Hermann from Dautphe, matriculated in 1562.

Now a few words to the typical Engelbach-professions :

As today there can be found holders of our name in all professions, you can see that in the past, often for many generations, the profession of a master (teacher) and a protestant parson appears very often. This is especially valid for the Wollmarer and the french line, which have both their origin in Dautphe, a village near Biedenkopf.

Another line, whose offspring live almost exclusive in the USA, has its origin in Biedenkopf and shows as well many churchmen.

Craftsmen professions like carpenter and turner and artistically, like artist and musician, have also been chosen very often. Mostly passed on from father to son.

At the french line, which had been living in the "Hanauer Land" (residence in Buchsweiler or Boxwiller) in the north of Strasbourg, it was dependent on the nearness to the german sovereigns under french rule, the Hanauer count and the Darmstädter district count, which profession they chose. We can find there schoolmasters and parsons, school- and churchoverseer, lawyers, office-attendants and taxcollecters, foresters (in Zweibrücken), even a court confectioner in Pirmasens, brief, a big number of worldly and ecclesiastically functionaries and dignitaries.

Johann-Philipp Engelbach, "bipontinus" (from Zweibrücken) confered a degree in 1733 in Marburg, the dissertation is still in the library of the university.,

Even uncommon careers have been existing:

Dr. Georg Engelbach, born in 1804, offspring of a citizen of Biedenkopf, grandson of a parson and son of a court judge in Darmstadt, emigrated into the USA in 1835, gave up his job as a doctor and bought arable land. He belonged to a group of studied persons, who became farmers and were the so called "Latin Farmers". George was "untrained in agriculture but with iron will and industry", as an american study found out. He gained so much acknowledgement that he became district commisioner of all the farmers in this region. But he died at the early age of 41 in Arenzville, Illinois.

Another nameholder has become so popular with his business that he is still mentioned in the Internet in many documents, although he died in 1946 at the age of 58.

In the year 1922 would the british archaeologist Howard Carter not have had the permission to open the grave of the Pharao Tutenchamun, with its immense treasures, in the Valley of Kings, Egypt, if the chief keeper of the Cairo Museum had not given it to him. His name was Reginald (Rex) Engelbach.

Today we have the pleasure to have Mrs. Joan Wand-Tetley around us , who was born in Egypt as the daughter of Rex Engelbach. Welcome, dear Mrs. Wand-Tetley. We are pleased to see that you did not shy at trouble to come all the way from London.

Rex Engelbach was an offspring of Gottlieb Engelbach, who belonged to the french line, had emigrated to England at the end of the 18th century and later went to Darmstadt with his daughter and her husband Friedrich of Bechtold, where he can be found as "pensioned british commisioned officer" in the citizen register.

A report, which has been published when Rex Engelbach died, can be looked at as well as a list of his published studies. It can be seen at the exhibited documents.

A collection of popular personalities, published in Germany, which can be found at the library of the University of Marburg, shows a great number of registrations of the name Engelbach. The list of the names is also to be seen at the exhibited documents.

There is also a number of dissertations, with which namesakes gained their doctor title. One of them, Johann Konrad Engelbach, born in Westhofen in the lower Alsat, at that time 26 years old, gained his Dr. jur. of the juristic faculty of the University of Strasbourg. He was fellow student and, at the table of nurse Lauth in Knoblochgasse 22, neighbour at table of a young student from Frankfurt, who had to stay in Strasbourg for 16 months and who wrote down in his former memories "Dichtung und Wahrheit" (Poetry and Truth) his adventures with Engelbach. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe missed to mention the name of "his" Engelbach, the declarations in the french and german literature can not give doubtless information about the family of Goethes friend.

In a movie called "The poor people of Kombach" a Engelbach appeared as a stage-coach- robber, who gave the loot to poor people. This stage-coach travelled in between Marburg and Biedenkopf....But the court did not rest until all evil-doer had received their punishment.

Emigration

If you take a look at the electronic telephonebook of the Federal Republic of Germany, you will recognize that the holders of our name have been living in Hessen and Nordrhein- Westfalen, most of them in the nearness of the village Engelbach. You can find out that nameholders living in distant regions of Germany have their origin in Oberhessen, which means they emigrated from this place.

We already know the first popular nameholder, Georg Engelbach, who came from Wetterau to study in Strasbourg, because of marriage in 1649. He was the first emigrant. He lived abroad, because Strasbourg was under French rule after a 30-year-long war. His offsprings are with us today.

The English line, descendent from the alsatian and founded by Gottlieb Ludwig Engelbach, is living in London and surroundings today. Belonging to them Rex Engelbach and his daughter, Mrs. Wand-Tetley, as well as Michael Shenstone from Ottawa.

Jacob Engelbach, an ancestor of Derek Engleback, emigrated to England because of unknown reasons. His origin is not known.

It is noted in the family chronicle that my ancestor, Johannes Engelbach, teacher in Wollmar from 1812 to 1861, went abroad, after he was discharged from the teacher-seminar in Marburg, because of not having work. He went to Worms at the river Rhein. But he came back, soon, and became successor of his father.

The geneological table of Heinz Engelbach from Freiburg and Hermann Engelbach from Otterberg, near to Kaiserslautern, says that Georg Hermann Engelbach immigrated to Otterberg in the year 1758. Where from? From Biedenkopf, where his father Conrad, Lutheran and cloth-painter, had married his wife on the 2nd August 1729.

The famine winter 1816/17 lead to a mass-emigration out of the southern German regions. Also 600 persons of the hessian Hinterland moved, because of missing existential possibilities. They wanted to try their luck in America. It is not impossible that some of them could have been Engelbachs.

2 Immigrants from Baden
31 Immigrants from Pfalz
8 Immigrants from Hessen
12 Immigrants from the Rheinland
5 Immigrants from all other German states

Many of the Engelbachs from America do not know where there ancestors have been coming from, because of the loss of the documents. You can only see in the lists of immigrants at the mormons that some have their origin in Hessen, Bavaria or Pfalz. Even if the mentioned clothmaker-family have had many children, then it will still not be enough, to have so many offsprings as people having emigrated into the USA.

The result of my investigations is that almost all Engelbachs, who emigrated to the USA, are offsprings of the alsatian line.

The information about their origin lead us to this supposition:

The territory of Hanau-Lichtenberg did not end with the leftrheinischen, french part. The part east of Strasbourg belonged at the time of emigration, about middle of the 19th century and does still belong today to Baden. Further dependents of Hanau-Lichtenberg have been Zweibriicken and Pirmasens, residences in which Engelbachs have been in duty in different functions. Zweibrücken and Pirmasens had later belonged to the bavarian Pfalz. The declaration of origin "Bavaria" or "Pfalz" was also referred to the former territory of Hanau- Lichtenberg. Also Homburg, the today's Homburg/Saar, is an origin of namesakes. If someone is interested, there can be searched more in this direction. This is especially to Jim Engelbach from Iowa, whose ancestor Adolf came out of this area.

It is time for me to come to an end before getting beyond the scope of an extensive welcome. In case of the information I obtained out of genuine files or specific literature during the last 15 months being a reason for you to go on searching, I would have gained what I wanted to. I asked myself more than once if what I am doing is worthwhile. Many times have friends and relatives smiled compassionately at me when I started to tell them what I was working on.

After our meeting, I will take a long break concerning ancestry research. But I am quite sure that the "search for our roots", which brought us together, has been an exciting adventure.

"Who once caught the virus of ancestry research can hardly get rid of it." (Statement of an "insane" in the Internet)

I beg your indulgence for the length of my work, which, I hope, was somehow interesting for you. I also wish for you and me that our esprit de corps has been strengthened by having learned about the history of our different lines. Should we ever meet again, should there grow up friendship out of this meeting, then this trouble would make sense.

I hope this evening will be to our satisfactory and tomorrow will stay in best memory.

Thank you.

Michael Engelbach
16.7.1999

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