I am a descendant of John Ellis Sharber, whose family moved to the middle Tennessee area in the early 1800s. I currently live in Chattanooga and have an alternative theory for our lineage, one that might link our past more directly to the British isles than Germany.

Here is the line of male ancestors that I have been able to trace:

John Ellis Sharber (b. 1793 in North Carolina)
John Sharbo (b. 1775 NC)
Jonathan Sharbo (b. 1733 NC)
Thomas Sharbro (b. 1700)

There is also evidence that Sharbros lived in Virginia during the 1600s and moved to the Piedmont area of North Carolina in the latter parts of that century.

For several reasons, I believe that this particular Sharber family tree's most direct line traces back to Irish, English, and Scottish roots.

First, in death records and wills left by our ancestors, we see that these communities were almost entirely comprised of people of British descent. It seems more likely that Sharbros follow suit because of the company that they kept.

Second, the Sharbro name is remarkably similar to the English family Scarborough, of the same stock as the Bacon's rebellion Scarborough. I have even found some Sharboroughs in their family tree. It seems very likely that Sharbro is a variation of this name.

It does seem clear that at least some of the Sharber families in the United States today descended directly from Germany. These relatives arrived at Sharber as a variant of the German word Scharber. I believe that this disproves our original German connection because our name evolved into Sharber from a name that looked drastically different, Sharborough, Sharbro, Sharbo. Many of the German Sharber families originated as Scharbers and dropped the c somewhere along the line.

Lastly, the anglo saxon word scaer is the root for the Scarborough surname. There is evidence that this is the root for names like Sharpe, Sharper, Sharpless, Scarborough, and others. It seems likely that our Sharbro is a variation of the Scarbro spelling in early colonial Virginia. These conclusions seem especially likely because of the -bro and -borough endings, which were common throughout England. The -borough ending is of old english origin. This argument is not completely foolproof because the -burg ending of the same origin was a common German variant.

Anyway, the beauty of being an American for so many generations is the complex nature of our ancestral background. We no doubt have plenty of German, English, Irish, and Scottish blood from all the years in North America. I'd love to hear anyone's ideas about this theory.