I am looking for any information on the ancestry, relatives and descendants
of an Huguenot family from the south of France, (probably Bouches-du-Rhone
region) named Colombe.  A branch of this family moved north in the 1500s,
apparently in the times of persecution, and settled in Alsace, near the
Swiss/German border.  There they were known by their neighbors as "Die
Colomber," meaning "the Colombes," and this became slurred to Kombler,
Komler/Kommler, and Kumler/Kummler.  Descendants under the name
Kummler/Kumler are in Germany (Rheinland-Pfalz, Baden-Wuerttemberg),
and others were in Canton Basel, Switzerland, as early as 1572.
In 1749 a family of the Canton Basel branch emigrated to Pennsylvania. 

Descendants are now widespread in the United States under the spellings
Kumler, Cumbler, Coomler, and Kummler.  

As late as the 19th or early 20th century there was a relative of the
family remaining in the south of France, a Colonel Colombe who lived in
Marseille.  The coat of arms of the family, as kept in the Swiss
branch, is a blue shield on which is a golden anchor.  At the top of the
shield is a horizontal strip of green on which are three silver stars.


D. Coomler