Roots of the Rhine

Story of the Seiberts from 1640 - 1964

Roots of the Rhine follows the Seibert family across three centuries, from flood-prone fields near Biblis and Darmstadt to the river bottoms of Indiana and the packinghouses of Omaha. Blending rigorous archival research with vivid storytelling, the book traces a single surname—“victory-bright”—through war, famine, revolution, and migration. Readers walk beside farmers, wagon-makers, soldiers, and butchers as they face the Thirty Years’ War, Napoleonic upheavals, the 1848 revolutions, the American Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II. Along the way, maps, context chapters, and research tips help genealogists and history lovers follow their own lines from the Rhine plain to the American Midwest, proving that world history lives inside ordinary families.