George Farber was born 12 Nov 1817 in Alsace, France. He immigrated to this country in July 1833. I have seen several variations of the Ferber name in the records for this line. It might have been Färber originally. I have seen Färber, Farber, Faerber, and Ferber.

The Alsace region of France is very large, and I don’t have any information about what city or town he was born in. The borders in Europe changed quite a bit over the years of course, and it is interesting to see how a person’s birth country could change in each census.

• His 1840 naturalization papers state George Ferber was born in France.
• The 1850 census states George Farber was born in Germany.
• The 1860 census states George Farber was born in France.
• The 1870 census states George Farber was born in France.
• The 1880 census states George Ferber was born in Elsace.

So it’s hard to say with any certainty what the name was originally. This is the farthest back I have gone on the Ferber line, and I need to do more research to find the ship manifest when he came, and who are various other Ferbers living in the household in some census records.

George Ferber married Catherine Mary Diekamp in St. Charles, MO, on 28 Feb 1843, before Justice of the Peace James Green. They had 11 children (possibly 10), and I have found marriage records for 10 of the children so far, so most of them lived to adulthood.

The last child born (in 1867) to George and Catherine was Frederick Louis “Fritz” Farber, who married Vida Dwiggins in St. Charles on 09 Apr 1890. Frederick and Vida had 7 children, one of whom was George James Patrick Ferber, who changed his name to James Patrick McCormick about 1935.