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Photo courtesy of Karlheinz Röll of
Leiberstung
Church in Leiberstung
Willkommen! The Ibach welcome mat is
out! Should you be an Ibach or related to
one; this is your place! This Site is intended to provide an archive
of world-wide information about the Ibach family. Persons
interested in the Ibach or associated
surname are invited to participate. When it's time to
leave this Site, may you be better off than you were when you
entered!
Pronunciation of the Ibach
surname. If you do not have Realplayer, click on the icon.
Art Ibach pronouncing the
Ibach
surname.
The Ibach Archives
The Ibach archives consists of
genealogies, family
histories, family
recipes, family
traditions, and a potpourri of Ibach related things.
Our Webmeister, Art Ibach is known for his
jokes - so you might find some of those here also.
NEW! Story of Father Ubach from Barcelona, Catalonia,
Spain
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Grand Duchy-of Baden 1806 - 1914
The Ibach
Surname
As with many surnames, there are various spellings
for Ibach; IBACH, EBACH,YBACH,
EYBACH, EIBACH, UBACH and the "americanized" EBAUGH. Ibach is a place name.
A name given to people who came from villages of that name. Originally
they were Ibachers or German for those people from Ibach. The word Ibach is a contraction
of two separate words. The Germanic word, Bach, means brook, creek, small
stream or rivulet. That word remains unchanged yet today.
Yew Tree Branch
The "I" is a different story. It is now believed to
be a dialectic abbreviation of the present German word "Eibe" or yew tree.
This word has evolved from ywa to Iwa to Iba to eibe. The oldest spelling
for Ibach may have
been Ywach; the 'Yw' for Ywa and the 'ach' for Bach. (The 'B' from Bach is
commonly omitted in contracted German place names.) So what does
'yew brook' or 'Ibach' really mean?
For this, we need to understand how places were named.
Early explorers/missionaries, usually were or had map
makers who would note and name prominent mountains, water resources and
other natural resource sites. When they named a small brook Ibach, they were
really noting the location of a particular brook where yew trees could be
found. These rare yew trees flourished only along certain brooks that had
the right elevation and climatic conditions.
Why would medieval man care about these trees enough
to name the spots where they grew? The heartwood of yew trees contained
the strongest most resilient material available at that time for crossbows
and longbows. Prized by archers and hunters alike. In fact, William Tell
was purported to have lived near what is now Ibach, Schwyz,
Switzerland. If the legend is true about William Tell shooting an
apple off his son's head, it's likely he did it with an Ibach bow! So, where
are all of these villages called Ibach?
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