This is quite a rare surname, at least in American colonial and 19^th century records.   The name evidently originated in the Palatinate municipality of Trarbach on the east bank of the Moselle River, about five miles from the place Michael Trarbach was christened in the year 1700.  In modern Germany it is combined with a town on the opposite river bank to form the town of Traben-Trarbach.   The name was spelled in an amazing variety of ways in America but my particular branch of the family, which migrated into Virginia and Kentucky, styled themselves “Traughber” and phonetic equivalents.

The First Traughbers Arrive in 1751

• Some background on the arrival of  Michael Trarbach and family on the Ship Patience from Rotterdam to Philadelphia
• A History of the Ship Patience which appears in North American records from 1740 through 1764, making five round trips from Rotterdam to Philadelphia before abandoning the transport of passengers in 1753.

My Traughber Genealogy

• First Generation:  Michael Trarbach (1700-1771) & Family
• Second Generation:  William Traughber (1744-1826) & Family
• Third Generation: Michael Traughber (c1767-1826) & Family

• Fourth Generation: William Traughber (1798-1850) who moved from Logan County, Kentucky to Robertson County, Tennessee and was one of the first settlers of Dallas, Texas where he operated the town’s second saloon and was remembered as it’s first baker.

  • A separate paper on the Descendants of William Traughber (1798-1850):  whose children were Lydia Gorham, William R. Traughber, and Mary Elizabeth who married George Washington Baird.

Two Traughber Chancery Cases

• A Trobough Scandal: Cook vs. Cook – a chancery case in Augusta County, Virginia involving an illegitimate son of Nicholas Trobough by a woman named Elizabeth Rine who was raised by her husband Jacob Cook.  Nicholas Trobough’s brothers William and Michael Trobough figured in the case, which also includes depositions taken in 1820 from (a different) Michael Traughber and John Widick in Robertson County, Tennessee.
• Jacob Troarbaugh vs. William Troarbaugh & Nicholas Troarbaugh – an 1807 court case with a number of depositions that clarified the children of the immigrant Michael Trarbach and of his eldest son Adam Troarbaugh.   The will of Adam Troarbaugh is included in this file, as are a number of York County court and guardianship records.

Traughber Record Abstracts

• Traughber Records of Logan County, Kentucky – a chronologically arranged collection of deed, probate, and marriage abstracts from 1796 through the 1860s.
• Traughber Records of Robertson County, Tennessee – a chronologically arranged collection of deed, probate, and marriage records from 1810 through the 1860s.