"Family Nibbles - Volume 11, Stories of Our Maninger Ancestors 1700-1920" is a compilation of stories from the blog site familynibbles.com. Since the 1600s, generations of our Maningers lived in and around the village of Dittwar, Germany. It's a village in a side valley of the Tauber River southwest of Würzburg, Germany. The farms and vineyards sustained the Maningers for generations. By the mid-1800s, economic and military factors contributed to emigration from Europe to the Western Hemisphere. In 1854, Valentine Maninger left Dittwar for America, settling in central Illinois. He plied his trade as a shoemaker, then became a farmer. In Illinois, Valentine met and married Magdalena Smith Neuhauser. Magdalena's family had come from Alsace Lorraine, and had close ties with neighboring Amish families. Those families lived, worked, married, and worshipped together. In the 1880s, the families moved west together, to Harper County, Kansas. Valentine Maninger's descendants established farms and jobs and businesses in Harper. In the 20th century, succeeding generations found opportunity and work away from Harper. Today the Maninger descendants are widespread, but relish their common heritage.