Jack Cripe wrote:

I am told that any old world attempt to get more information on Jacob Greib's family has so far failed. Even heard from a guy in Germany trying to nail it down with no luck yet.

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It could well be that I'm that mentioned guy. Sorry for not replying sooner, but I couldn't reach ancestry.com for quite a long time. Anyway, I feel that I should tell you what I found out in between. It's going to be a little longer, but could be of interest for some of you.

It should be mentioned that I'm far from being a professional genealogist. I work as an engineer in Munich and am only fascinated of genealogy. My wife is a born Greib and comes from a village in Germany (Amöneburg) with many Greibs living there. There were some US requests all asking if Jacob Greib was born there. The answer is a clear no. (I studied the church books myself.) But since I became very interested in this mystery, I still try to find out the interconnections of all Greib families in Germany (about 50 entries in the phone index, and almost everyone has roots in Amöneburg) as well as collecting all data I can get from Cripes in the United States.

What I found out now is very fascinating: In Lorraine, France, many Greibs can be found today as well. This is a completely different branch; furthermore these people are Lutheran and not Catholic like all the German Greibs. According to some genealogists, Swiss Huguenots came to Lorraine around 1680 after a rebellion in Bern, Greibs being under them. The first traces lead to Lixheim, then to Goerlingen, Helleringen and Diedendorf. And, finally, I found a Jacob Greib, born August 7th, 1711, in Diedendorf. Several facts make me think this is the one we all search for:

1. All of the German Greibs were born and died in Amöneburg at that time. No one emigrated. And no Jacob was born there at all.

2. In 1733, Jacob Greib came by ship to Philadelphia with many other passengers, quite a lot of them born in Diedendorf. Harold Eddleman, whom I contacted some time ago, collected all he could get about this journey and put it on the web. It can be found on http://www.disknet.com/indiana_biolab/eg927.htm

3. Jacob claimed his age to be 21 when he arrived in Philadelphia which comes very close to the age of the Jacob I found.

4. Jacob's father (his name was Jacob as well) was a cooper which fits to the small anecdote (be it true or not) that can be found on Pat Mote's website http://jimlong.net/genealogy/cripe.html

Still there was one thing that bothered me: all US genealogists claim there is a sister of Jacob called Elizabeth (*1720) who came with him (though not listed on the ship!) and married Stephen Ulrich. According to what I have, Jacob had 5 siblings, even a sister Elizabeth, but all of them married people in Lorraine (except sister Judith, *1717, of whom I don't have further information). Because of this missing sister I contacted Alice Beard and Don Bowman, and both answered that this is an ongoing myth. In fact there is no proof at all that Elizabeth is Jacob's sister! So it really seems to be that we finally solved the mystery.

I think my sources are quite reliable: around 1970, a German genealogist has made typewriter copies of all the church books in that area. These copies were scanned now and are available on a CD-ROM. There is a French genealogist who provided me with the respective data about Jacob. So here is what I have concerning the early Greib ancestors:

Adam Greib
* maybe in Switzerland
oo in Helleringen/Lorraine
N.N. Maron

Adam Greib
* in Helleringen/Lorraine
+ in Helleringen/Lorraine
oo 18 January 1682 in Helleringen/Lorraine
Sara Hofmann

Jacob Greib
* January 1679 in Helleringen/Lorraine
+ 26 August 1765 in Schalbach/Lorraine
oo 13 February 1709 in Diedendorf/Lorraine
Veronika Lantz
+ 1734

Jacob Greib
* 14 August 1711 in Diedendorf/Lorraine
+ 28 September 1783 in Frankstown, Huntingdon Co., PA

The Swiss root can maybe be followed further on. The original name seemed to be Greub. And there are some experts claiming that the only place where you could find Greubs at that time was Lotzwil near Bern. The next thing to do for me now is to investigate these traces further on.

Best regards
Steffen