Family history (origin of a surname...)?

Question

My family and I are trying to trace back some of my grandpa's family history. My grandpa was born 'William Edward Snodgrass' but was given into foster care at the age of 6. He was given into foster care because his blood family (seeing they had 8 kids) could not take care of all their children during the Great Depression. (My poor Grandpa :[ )

He was adopted and his name changed to 'Robert William Walker.'

So, we were looking at some geneology things, and it says my grandpa's birth mother's maiden name was 'Giebert.'

We'd like to know the origin of this name.

Her first name was Minerva (Minnie.)

The geneology says her mother was German and her father was Dutch.

So, because of that, (and that was our guess before) we think it's possibly German or Dutch, but we just...Don't know.

If anybody else has a better guess, (with facts even..) Or like, a web site that can give us accurate guesses or whatever.. Please let me know, thank you.

Answer 1

My ancestry account is closed at the moment.. but the easy and factual way is to find Minnie Giebert in the census, and get the real stuff about her.  If her father WAS Dutch and mom German, that is your answer right there.  In reality, genealogy (by the very nature of it) isn't about guessing, or generic surname origins.

You are fortunate, with an adoption that you have the names of the real parents.  People fight to find that.

And this is really common for the Great Depression.  

Answer 2

You can try going here:  

Answer 3

I use ancestry.com/