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A basic fact of mammalian life is that we all have two separate parents.
In their turn, of course, each of them has two parents, so that in not
very many generations, we have a staggering number of direct ancestors-not
to mention the other assorted offspring of each generation. My own family
is no different. The idea behind these pages is to give some idea of who
we came from. Rathgeber and Rothenburger are, of course, the names of my
mother's parents, and you will find a variety of other names mentioned.
They all come down to one thing: Me!
Most people reading this will have noticed that the majority of the
information on this site is about my father's family. There is a simple
reason for that: They were a lot easier to find. The Coubroughs are a
Scots family, and British records are primarily in English, which just
happens to be my mother tongue. Being an island, the general political
boundaries of Britain have been more or less stable for centuries.
Moreover, many British records are available over the Internet. My
mother's family, on the other hand, is mainly from Eastern Europe, in
areas whose records are primarily in German or Latin. Worse, the political
boundaries of today's Europe bear little resemblance to those of 200 years
ago. Few Eastern European records are on-line, and for the ones that are,
not only is my German is nearly non-existant, but trying to figure out
what country your ancestor's village belongs to now is an adventure. Thus,
while you will find here much more about my father's Coubroughs than about
my mother's Rathgebers, those Rathgebers and some of their
ancestors are indeed here.
Had my ancestors all stayed in the countries that hatched them, it
seems unlikely that people from such diverse backgrounds would even meet
each other, let alone marry. North America, it seems, was the land of
opportunity in more ways than earning a living. At any rate, meet and
marry they did, and here we are.
The Rathgeber and Rothenburger pages on this site outline my mother's
ancestors. I have two reasons for posting them: First, to share what I
have found out, and second, in hopes that someone will be able to tell me
more-or at least where my mistakes are. Not all of this information has
been verified with primary sources, so if you find mistakes, I would be
grateful if you told me. Some of the lines are rather short, but I hope to
rectify that eventually. If your family is here, I would love to hear from
you; if your family is not here, I want to hear from you too.
Perhaps the most important thing I can say here is "Thank
you" to all those whose efforts have made this work possible. Some of
the research is my own (as are any errors), but much of it has been
contributed by assorted cousins of various degrees. Some of it was their
own work, and some was contributed by still other cousins, who have now,
unfortunately, moved on to the next world, or otherwise disappeared from
my ken. If your work is here, thank you very
much. I couldn't have done it without you. And I always like to hear from "new cousins."
Happy hunting,
Myrna J. Coubrough
daughter of Mary Ann Rathgeber
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