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Archiver > GUS-REEB > 2004-08 > 1093060704


From: John Reeb <>
Subject: Keskastel
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:58:32 -0700 (PDT)


France is divided into Departments just as the United States is divided into states. the village of Keskastel is located in the most western portion of the department of Bas-Rhin which is separated from the rest of Bas-Rhin by the Vosges mountain range. This western part of Bas-Rhin is separated from the department of Moselle by the Sarre River.

This region was attached to France on 14 Feb. 1793 and integrated into the department of Bas-Rhin on 23 November 1793. For a long period of history, other than some intervals when the area was occupied by Lorraine and France, this region had belonged to the Counts of Nassau and was known as Grafschaft [Countdom] of Nassau-Saarwerden. In 1742 a death in the noble family was the reason for an inventory of the entire countdom in order to settle the estate. This inventory included a census of the the households listing the names of the subjects [heads of household], their occupation, their religious faith, number of children, property including houses, livestock, and debts plus every household was rated as according to their economic status. In the village of Pisdorf, only a few kilometers south of Keskastel, the merchant Gustavus Reeb had the most debts but also was rated in the best category of economic condition. In 1745, the estate was settled and the villages in the countdo!
m were
divided by two separate branches of the noble family. Eleven villages, including Keskastel, Schopperten, Pisdorf, Herbitzheim, and others became property of Nassau-Weilburg and the other 25 villages became property of Nassau-Saarbrucken.

Gustavus Reeb, the merchant, died in 1748 only a few days following his 21 year old son Johann Jacob Reeb, and in 1752, his oldest son immigrated to Pennsylvania where he was occupied as a coppersmith in Philadelphia. Three other sons, Gustavus in 1754, and Michael and Nicolaus at some time but by 1761 had all come to Pennsylvania also. Due to the number of generations of their descendants in America, I suspect that their numbers far exceed those of other Reebs who followed from the western most section of Bas-Rhin beginning in 1803 when Johann Theobald Reeb, of Keskastel, brought his family along with his father-in-law, Heinrich Wilhelm Goehring and his other children when they arrived at the port of Baltimore and from there traveled to Butler County, Pennsylvania. In following years between 1840s and 1914 many other Reeb families from the towns of Keskastel, Vollerdingen, Dehlingen and even one single man from the town of Rimsdorf have also made America their final homelan!
d. Others
of their cousins who had moved deeper into France some into the area of Nancy, France and one from there to Paris and then on to the U.S.A. Documentation shows that all these Reebs from that that western-most section of Bas-Rhin which was known in early times as Grafschaft of Nassau-Saarwerden have resided in that region since at least as early as 1482 and DNA does indicate they share a common ancestor in some generation back in time.

The question has been raised about my reference to "the so called Keskastel Reebs" or/and "the so called Keskastel area" and what this means. To explain, it is certainly not intended to sound sarcastic. Many of us have come to refer to that region as the Keskastel area and the Reebs who trace their ancestry to that entire region, not just those who came here directly from Keskastel as the Keskastel Reebs. Perhaps in some ways it is appropriate since at least the Reebs who moved to Pisdorf did so from Keskastel. Reebs who came to America direct from Keskastel had ancestors who had lived there since the period following the Thirty Years War which ended in 1648. Pisdorf Reeb ancestors were named in the baptismal records of Reeb children of the family in Keskastel for at least four generations following the baptism of the young Heinrich Reeb's baptism in Herbitzheim in 1599 when Heinrich Reeb, also then of Herbitzheim. Between 1599 old Heinrich had moved to Keskastel from Her!
bitzheim
and was there in 1630 when he was named in some document as the Mayor at Keskastel. In that same year, another Heinrich Reeb was named as a resident of the village of Bissert. I am convinced he was the same person who was baptized as an infant in 1599, a son of Jacob Reeb. The older Heinrich Reeb was father to Niclass, a contemporary possibly a first cousin of Heinrich the younger, and Niclass was the one who moved his family to Pisdorf (now Bischtroff-sur-Sarre) soon after his kinsman Heinrich moved to Keskastel.

The "so called Keskastel area" has known been called many names. Nassau-Saarwerden, Nassau-Weilburg, and at different times it was claimed or at least occupied by France and also by Lothringen [Lorraine}. The Germans refer to this region as "der Krummes Elsass" meaning broken or bent Alsace, in reference to the bent and twisting border that winds around the area which kind of resembles an inland peninsula pertrubing into Moselle on three sides. However more commonly the area is called byt the French as "Alsace Bossue" meaning hunched back Alsace..as it kind of appears like a hump or clump on the back of the long strip of land running from the very northeast corner of France south to the department of present day Haut-Rhin. We have come to refer to the area as the Keskastel area and the Reebs from that entire region as the Keskastel Reebs just as a more simple explanation of who we are and where we are from and to differentiate us from the Reebs who lived in the other areas of
Bas-Rhin, France the majority in the RFA being the Zutzendorf Reebs who lived on the opposite side of the Vosges from Keskastel but in a different setting and under different rule. Even the dialect of German was not the same in the two areas. Further, at least in modern times those regions appear to have completely different styles of architecture and this is very noticable after one crosses the Vosges region and enters into the area where our ancestors lived. I will be honest with you if you are impressed with the very beautiful half timbered and decorative houses in Alsace proper you may be disappointed to see those in the region where our Keskastel, Pisdorf and other villages lived.

John V. Reeb

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