FIRST GENERATION

1. UrVater KORNGIEBEL was born about 1510 in Homberg/Efze, Kurfürstentum Hessen-Kassel.
Homberg/Efze is about 16 Km north of the mid-point of a straight line connecting Kirchhain and Bad Hersfeld.
He was The Meaning of the name "Korngiebel".
Doris Korngiebel, a librarian at the University of Köln (Cologne) <korngiebel@ub.uni-koeln.de>, sent the following excerpt from _Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen_, by Josef K. Brechenmacher (Limburg: C. A. Starke Verlag, 1960, 2 Bände) ISBN 3-7980-0355-6:

Korngi(e)bel, ÜN = der das Korn an Bedürftige ausgibt, zu mhd gibe = Gabe. Wohltat. 1598 Georg Korngiebel aus Schenklengsfeld (Hess. Nass.): MaM. 34.

Translated, "Korn" for grain and "gi(e)bel" is Middle High German (mhd=Mittelhochdeutsch) from the verb "geben" or give. "Gabe" is German for a gift, donation, alms, offering, etc. "Wohltat" means benefit, blessing, kindness, favor, good deed. "Bedürftige" is from the verb bedürfen, to be in want of, to need, and the form means a person of that condition, i.e. in want or in need.

Thus, "der das Korn an Bedürftige ausgibt," the explanation of the name, means "One who gives (i.e., donates, as an alm or offering) grain to the needy." The name probably began as a reference to one who dispensed grain to needy people on behalf of a community, or a wealthy person doing this on his own, which was then formally adopted when family names became mandatory in the 13th-14th century. As there are numerous Korngiebel lines apparently stemming from a wide area of middle Germany - from (Bad) Salzungen,Thüringen in the east to Kirchhain, Hessen in the west - it is more reasonable that the name originated in a community function, possibly a religious community such as an abbey or cloister, rather than an individual's largesse.

The historical reference is to one Georg Korngiebel who in 1598 lived in the village of Schenklengsfeld in Hessia, near the historic dividing line between Hessia and Thueringia. He matriculated at Marburg university 1527 - 1652 with the Latin form of the name Georg Korngibelius of Schencklengsfeld, Schenklengsfeld is a very short distance west of Gethsemanae/Philippsthal, Hessia, the Huguenot refugee village where Doris Korngiebel's grandmother was born.

In 1580 Schenklengsfeld was a part of the abbey Hersfeld, later in Landgrafschaft Hessen (Kassel), but still a part of that former abbey (with a special justice system) and for short time in the Prussian province of Hessen-Nassau (1866 - 1945, the capital was Kassel).

The entire district of Fulda, until 1803, was ruled independently by the Prince Bishop of Fulda. After the breakup of the Confederation of the Rhine Fulda was incorporated into Hesse Kassel. In addition there may have been some exclaves, formerly ruled by the Archbishop of Mainz that were incorporated into Hesse Kassel at the same time. You should look at the whole district of Fulda, not just around the city itself as this area would be mostly Catholic even today.

Gustaf Eichbaum writes:
There are two kinds of abbeys / monasteries - the one like Hersfeld was an independent free imperial abbey - their abbot when elected was like an imperial prince invited to the Reichstage, had to govern all his country with a staff of officers and clerks. A lot of noble families belonged to that country, taking their seats from the abbot (again every time when one of the two parts died), other monasteries (like Frauensee) belonged as a part to the Fürstabtei Hersfeld. Nearby also Fulda was a Fürstabtei (they kept the catholik faith, while Hersfeld became Protestant after the Reformation, but was governed independent by Hessian princes, as a branch of the house of Hessen-Kassel. In 1648 it became officially a part as a principality of Hessen-Kassel (then shown in the arms with the double silver cross in black).

A great part of the territory of the former Fürstabtei Hersfeld was in the nowadays German Federal State of Thüringen - they always changed parts of the country after a treaty to satisfy all parts, people weren´t asked in those times - the faith (after 1605) was Calvinistic in Hessen-Kassel. While Thüringen, the Dukes of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, were strictly Lutheran. But then they got a big deal of subjects of that "ugly" faith - it took a long time to get used to each other. But the Saxon Dukes (and their staff) had an easy way to treat people, not as strict as the Hessen, Goethe lived there).

The author of Althessische Pfarrer didn´t understand why Georg Korngiebel was called a "Meckbacher" in 1604. Meckbach is a small village, but even the name of that official in Hersfeld (you´ll find him in my ancestral file), he had to do the changing from simple to be Protestant to the expresive Calvinistic faith, as Landgraf Moritz wanted. So all people supporting him in and around Hersfeld, were called "Meckbacher". (Not a few priests from expressive Lutheran areas moved long before 1605 to Hessen, were they were welcome all the time. From the beginning after the Reformation the Hessian students visited the Calvinistic universities in the Netherlands and Switzerland, besides their own at Marburg, and so Bremen and Duisburg, both Calvinistic in Germany, while the Lutherans went to Erfurt, Wittenberg, Jena and Halle (and the smaller ones Helmstedt and Altdorf (belonged to the city of Nürnberg, which had its own university). (Mainz, Wien and Prague were Catholic)

The name appears in the Musterungen in Vacha am Werra before 1545. (In den Musterungen 1545 kommt der Name nur in Vacha vor.)

Information on the descendants of this Korngiebel through Valentin Korngiebel, born about 1689 in (Bad)Hersfeld comes from "Die Vorfahren von Martin Heinrich SCHIMMELPFENG * 1788 in Holzhausen auf der Haide, + 1856 in Trier" by Gustaf-Götz Eichbaum, born 1935, Vorzitzender (president) of der Gesellschaft für Familienkunde in Kurhessen und Waldeck e.V
<<http://www.genealogienetz.de/vereine/GFKW/.>>, who is descended from Barthold and Anna Elisabetha geb. Korngiebel (* 8 July 1625 + 7 August 1704 Hersfeld).

Gustaf-Götz Eichbaum
Eifelweg 5
34277 Fuldabrck-Bergshausen
(0561) 58 15 23
Gugoeich@aol.com

Gustaf writes about his sources:
My Korngiebel start with Konrad / Curt Korngiebel, born about 1540 in Homberg / Efze (Niederhessen, on top on a map of Hessen). Reverend in Obergeis, Kruspis (all close to Hersfeld), then in (Schenk-) Lengsfeld (once owned by the barons Schenck zu Schweinsberg) (nearby over the border to Thüringen (but even a part of Hessen at a time) there is Stadt - Lengsfeld. All details in Oskar Hütteroth, Die althessischen Pfarrer der Reformationszeit, Marburg 1966.

Another early source for names in Hessen(-Kassel) is:
Die Musterungen 1543 - 1553, by Herbert Lamprecht, Kassel, 1987; Korngiebel on pages 301, 304, 305, all in the small town Vacha / at river Werra (at that time a part of Hessen, now (since 1815) in Thüringen):
Christian Korngiebel, 1545
Hans Korngiebel, 1545, 1546
Christoffer Korngiebel, 1546

In another source from 1639 is das hessische Mannschaftsregister von 1639, by Hilmar Milbradt, Frankfurt, 1959. Korngiebel doesn´t exist , because it lists all farmers and their losses after the worst years in 30 years war, Korngiebels seem not have been any farmers, but officers, reverends aso. (Vacha, Schenklengsfeld and Homberg are cited with all farmers in ).

The Matrikel of Marburg university 1527 - 1652 only show us:
Georg Korngibelius (Schencklengsfeld), 1598.

UrVater KORNGIEBEL had the following children:

+2 i. Conradus (Curt) KORNGIEBEL.