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Johann Faber Sr. was born in Pferdsfeld, Rhineland/Pfalz, Bavaria. He was a linen weaver for several years and then after aquiring some wealth turned to farming. The Johann Faber Sr. family members, who immigrated to Washington County in Wisconsin in the middle to late 1800s, lived in the foothills of the Hunsruck Mountains in rough terrain in the county of Kreuznach, Rhineland/Pfalz, Prussia. The Nahe River, a branch of the Rhine River, flows nearby. When Johann Faber Sr. was born, the town of Pferdsfeld belonged to Bavaria, later Napoleon took it over for France, then Fredrich William, the King of Prussia, calmly took over the Rhineland. Johann Faber Sr. married Maria Elizabeth Barth and their eight children were baptized in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Monzingen, a town south of Auen where they lived. The members of the Faber family which came over the Atlantic Ocean on ships left from Hamburg. The eldest son, John Jr. age 21, came first on the ship Adelhaid, captained by W. Jorgensen. It arrived in New York City on 8 July, 1847. Other members of the family came over later at intervals which suited them best. Some daughters married in Rhineland and immigrated under their married names. Living became difficult in the Rhineland during and after the reign of Napoleon. Also, there was a terrible potato famine in the Rhineland between 1845 and 1847. Germany, under the Bismarck, did not take over the Rhineland until 1871, several years after all the Johann Fabers immigrated to Wisconsin as Prussians.

The Pfalz, Rhineland or the Palatinate, was, in germanic history, the lands belonging to Count Palatine, a title held by a leading secular prince of the Holy Roman Empire (800 A.D. - 1806 A.D.). The boundaries of the Palatinate varied with the political and dynastic fortunes of the various appointed Counts of Palatine. Geographically, the Palatinate was divided into two small territorial clusters: the Rhenish, or Lower Palatinate, and the Upper Palatinate. The Rhenish Palatinate included lands on both sides of the middle Rhine River between the Main and Neckar tributaries. Its capital until the 18th century was Heidelberg. The Upper Palatinate was located in northern Bavaria, on both sides of the Naab River as it flows south toward the Danube, and extended eastward to the Bohemian Forest.

During the War of the Grand Alliance (1689 - 97), the troops of the French Monarch, Louis XIV, ravaged the Rhenish Palatinate, causing many germanic people to die and others to emigrate. Many of the early germanic settlers of America, in the 1700s, were refugees from the Palatinate. During the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the Palatinate's lands on the west bank of the Rhine were incorporated into France, while its eastern lands were divided largely between neighboring Baden and Hesse. After the defeat of Napoleon (1814 - 15), the Congress of Vienna gave the east- bank lands to Bavaria. These lands, together with some surrounding territories, again took the name of the Palatinate in 1838.

The surname FABER is polygenetic, for it was created in a variety of places in Europe. It is common in England, Scotland, Italy and Germany, and is now common in the Australia, Canada, the United States and some countries in South America too. Faber is the Latin word for smith, worker, or other similar jobs. Many Roman Catholic priests transcribed the surname Smith into their parish records as Faber since they were working in Latin. So over the years, many Smiths became Fabers.