The following is the English translation of the French magazine "facile Généalogie - Retrouvez l'histoire de vos ancêtres" article about the Schömbs.

The Cousin's Reunion of the Schömbs Family

In June 2005, overcoming all language barriers, 120 descendants of Zacharias Schömbs came from all over the world to a Reunion in Herrnsheim, a small part of the city of Worms in Germany, 25 km from Undenheim, where their ancestor settled in 1694.

At the end of 1980, in three different countries and in three different languages three persons independently started with the same investigation about their family history! The German Reinhold Schembs, the American Jim Schembs and the French Alain Schömbs.

A joint passion: Genealogy

In Mainz Reinhold Schembs is only a few bends of the Rhine River away from the houses of his ancestors. This neighborhood has given him the opportunity to discover his family tree back to Zacharias Schömbs (1645-1707).

In Phoenix, Arizona, Jim Schembs tries to compile the history of his family. He only knows, that his great-grandfather and some of his great-grandfather's cousins were leaving Germany in 1850 to emigrate to America.

In Paris Alain has found a passport dated in 1871 of the name Adam Schömbs, officially recognised cartwright, who had emigrated to France in the 1840s. Documents and a certificate of marriage in German and French had convinced him to expand his investigation to the other side of the Rhine-river. In 1995 he received the birth certificate of Adam Schömbs translated from German, which identifies Adams ' father Mathias, born in 1787. Adam, the founder of the French branch of the family tree, was born in 1815 in Dorn-Dürkheim, a small village, nowadays a part of Worms.

The meetings of 1999

When Jim discovered the family name Schembs in the telephone directory of the Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany, he sent out a letter, translated by a German friend, to those in the directory asking for help, to try to learn who his ancestors were.

The first who answered was Reinhold. From Reinhold Jim learned that he too descended from one of the four sons of Zacharias Schömbs. And Reinhold learned that many big family branches existed in America.

They began a serious E-mail correspondence, with the assistance of a bilingual friend of Reinhold's.

In 1999 Jim came with his wife Pamela to Germany and convinced Reinhold that they should organise a family meeting.

Jim and Reinhold attempted to find the Schembs, Schoembs and Schömbs by hook or by crook, to contact and to persuade them to come to the reunion. They succeeded in getting not only Germans but also relatives from America, The Netherlands, Ireland and Russia to come to the party -- a total of 90 family members. The gathering was held in the private studio of Mieke and Arno Schembs in Herrnsheim.

The Schömbs from Paris were unable to come, because they had already planned a journey to Africa at the same time.

But Jim and Pamela later traveled to Paris and were received by Alain, his wife Christiane, and all the French Schömbs.

The fusion of the three genealogical researches

Now started the project of the common research and the further important details of the family members. To communicate and share the information with all family members they created a large web-site, updated regularly.

Reinhold had published a book about the family history in Germany since 1645. It was impossible to trace back farther, because all documents had been destroyed during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).

Well, the family history starts with Zacharias, already 46 years old, who settles in Undenheim, a small town, which had been destroyed and abandoned as a result of the War but later rebuilt.

Also one can find the history (written by Jim) about all those descendants of Zacharias who emigrated to Amerika and other countries. Their history about the family continues up to the present. The family tree grows and grows, including those who have descended from the Schömbs women.

They have compiled more than 5000 descendants of Zacharias. The amicable relations grow stronger:

Jim and Pamela invited the granddaughter of Alain and Christiane to come visit them in Arizona and Oregon. Now it's time for a new "general meeting"!

Cousins meeting in 2005

Thanks to the active co-operation of their cousins Arno Schembs and Martin Schoembs, Reinhold and Jim planned a cousins meeting with a three-day program.

The gasthouses (small hotels and restaurants) of Herrnsheim were booked for the reception of about 100 German and foreign family members coming from all parts of the world and the several regions of Germany.

Friday was dedicated to a walk through Undenheim, as well as visiting several villages in the region where their ancestors had lived.

A great dinner on Saturday evening topped off the reunion of the cousins, who now were learning their family history over the past 250 years. An endless applause sounded when a gallery proof with a length of 50 M was unrolled, showing the family tree of Zacharias since 1745.

On Sunday many of the cousins met for a Rhine River cruise and discovered the romantic banks of the Rhine.

In spite of the barriers of the verbal communications this new community was overcome with an intense experience. Alain relates: "I found Doris, a German cousin who had lived in Paris on the same street as I. I enjoyed talking French to Ken, a cousin from Florida, who spent five years in France during the Second World War as an American GI."

A new meeting of the cousins is planned for the June 2008. As many as 30 Americans have scheduled the journey as well as relatives of six other countries!