Several sources say that the forebears of the Gibbs family migrated from England about 1640-1649.  One source says they were Scottish and another says they migrated before 1485 during the Wars of the Roses.  All agree that they were refugees.

     This editor [of the 1972 journal] believes that it was very unlikely that the Gibbses migrated as early as 1485.  The Wars of the Roses were dynastic wars between rival branches of the English royal family and the great nobles who were their supporters.  Though they caused great misery, they did not split the English people ideologically as did the English Revolution which led to the death of Charles I.

     On the other hand, after the schism between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church during the reign of Henry VIII, the people of England were split at least four ways on religious questions:  the Catholics, the Church of England, the Presbyterians, and the Covenanters (Roundheads or Congregationalists).  The prevailing political belief of the time, not only in England, but all over Europe, was that the citizens of a nation ought to share the faith of its ruler.  Otherwise they could not be loyal to him.  So when Mary came to the throne, England reverted to Catholicism, and hundreds of Protestants were killed.

     Elizabeth held down the fighting as long as she lived, but James I and Charles I both tried to convert all their subjects to the Church of England.  Thousands of Catholics fled to France.  Many of the Presbyterian and Congregationalist groups fled to Holland and Germany, e.g. the "Pilgrims."

     After Oliver Cromwell put Charles I to death in 1649, it was the turn of the Church of England people to suffer.  All the misery did not end until Charles II was put on the throne in 1660.  For these reasons, we believe that the Gibbs family were Protestants who fled England to a hospitable Protestant area in Germany in the early years of the 17th century.

     William Gibbs McAdoo, Sr., great-grandson of Nicholas Gibbs, says in his 1846 letter to George Washington Gibbs that the record in Nicholas Gibbs own handwriting gave September 29, 1733, as the date of his birth.  Mrs. Genevieve Peters found a record in Northhampton County, Pennsylvania, containing the muster roll of men who enlisted for three years to fight in the French and Indian War in Captain John Nicholas Weatherholt's company.  Number 18 was Nicholas Gips, born in Germany, who enlisted September 1,1767, at the age of 20. If Nicholas Gibbs enlisted at the age of 20 (his birthday was September 29), he would have been born in 1736.

     Incidentally, Gibbs would sound like Gips if pronounced by a German.

     According to Strassburger's Pennsylvania German Pioneers Johan Nickel Gibs arrived on October 1, 1764, on the ship Phoenix, John Spurrier, Master.  The ship sailed from Rotterdam, but the passengers were listed as from "Zweybreck," now called Zweibrucken.

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This page was last updated January 2, 2004 .
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