Family Info and great history
The Missing Links -- Connecting the Johann H. Kleiboeker descendants to the Kleyböcker Hof descendants
Johann Bernhard Kleiboecker of Gehrde, (whose children all immigrated to the USA and what most of this website is about) was most likely a descendant of the Kleyböckers of Hinnenkamp which originally were the family that inherited the rights of tenancy at the original farmstead or "Hof". Johann Bernhard Kleyboecker was born in 1801 at Neuenkirchen, a nearby village to Gehrde. His father was also born in Neuenkirchen. And Johann Bernhard's grandfather, Johann Hermann was listed in the Neuenkirchen Church records as being a "heurerling" or hired hand / serf from Hinnenkamp, the location of the Hof. So there is probably a direct connection to connect these two families, but we have not found any definitive record of this yet. It may be due to the fact that there was a Lutheran Church in Vörden, which is very close to Hinnenkamp, where most of the Hinnenkamp Kleiboekers/Kleyböckers attended. There was a major fire in Vörden which destroyed the church as well as the records of the church in 1747. So there is no information on the Kleiboekers who lived prior to 1747. In addition, the Neuenkirchen Church was a "Simultankirche". This meant that both Catholic and Lutheran services were held in the same building during the time period of late 1600's to 1850. So some of the birth, marriage and death records are today housed in the Evangelisch (Lutheran) Archives and some are housed in the Katholische (Catholic) Archives, and not all of these archives have been completely examined yet.
Over the years, we have identified 4 distinct branches of the Kleiboeker's / Kleyböcker's that are now resident in the US and Germany. Below are four links to "family tree tops" or summary family trees, that show the 4 branches of the Kleyböcker family that we have identified so far. All originate from the Neuenkirchen-Vörden area. The four Branches including links to their searchable trees are:
2. Johann Heinrich "Henry" Kleiboeker (1801-1862) whose descendants renamed themselves Claybaker.
3. Johann Heinrich Menke Kleyböcker (?-?) and son Christian Diedrich Bernhard Kleyböcker (1826-1875) descendants (ancestors of Barbara Kleyböcker Page and Bernd Kleyböcker)
Through DNA testing we have confirmed that two of these branches are definitely related, those of the Claybaker line and the Johann Bernhard Kleiboeker descendants (Branches 1. and 2. above). See more on this story here. In late 2018 records from the Neuenkirchen Church were found and we now have exact knowledge that links these two families. Henry Kleiboeker (1801-1862) is the first cousin of Johann Bernhard (1801-1863), as they both have the same Grandfather, Johann Heinrich Kleiboeker (~1732 - ~1790). This linkage can be seen by clicking on the links in either 1. or 2. above.
The third Branch which includes Barbara nee Kleyböcker and her brother Bernd Kleyböcker had DNA that did not directly match, but we are not giving up hope! The 4th Branch, those Kleyböckers who have inherited the Hof, and the direct descendants of that line are known as the Christian Menke Kleyböcker's, the name inscribed above the Hof Door. Most likely in the future we will be able to find records that tie all 4 of these families together. The links above allow you to peruse the family trees of each of these branches. The links below show Family Tree Tops (Charts) of each family.