Chub Geiger's introduction;

In what is called the Germanic tongue used in Middle Europe, including Austria and  Switzerland, the name Geiger is derived from the first stringed musical instrument  that was not plucked, but used a stick or bow scraping across the strings to produce  sounds.  This was a geige(pronounced guy-gee),later improved to become the violin.  A  geiger was the player.  The persons concerned with it assumed the name when clan  designations, or last names, became the popular thing to have.  I have never found a  Geiger of the past so good at fiddling that people bought tickets to their concerts.   When the Geigers came to America they could have tried to become more English by  changing to an English-type name,viz.,Fiddler.  It isn't any improvement,however. The  early recorders spelled it in their own way as it sounded to them;  so look around  for Gygers,Giggers,Gegars,Griggers,etc.  None of us ever gave much concern as to how  others spelled or pronounced it.  A goodly many of us have spent a liftime  as 'gigger' and got along just as well.  The name is fairly well used by different  groups,Jews,Swedes,Danish,etc. Most of the Geigers recorded coming to America, 1740- 1800, came by way of English ports and entered at Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,staying  in Pennsylvania,or gradually moving west following industry and town living with  others like themselves.  They came from Palantine,Vavaria,Baden and other Germanic  countries.  Working on large plantations and hard frontier farming in the South was  not even as good as what they had left behind in Europe.  I haven't found but one of  them moving down south in those times, and he joined with the Spaniards in St.  Augustine.

In a pretty thorough book, The Geigers of South Carolina, Percy L. Geiger, (1945),  and his kin searched in the nooks and crannies of that state, recording all known  Geiger connections.  Mr. Geiger also included some of Ulrich Geiger's descendants in  Georgia and Florida, showing their feeling of kinship.  From this book we find where  they came from in Europe, learn of their colony in South Carolina, but do not know  how they got there.  On page 7, it reads:"Council Journal Vol. VIII Pg. 69:May  26,1742, Petition of John Casper Geiger and family, Abraham Geiger and family, Herman  Geiger and family, and others'that they arrived and settled in Saxe-Gotha, But-they  could not find in what office they are.  So they ask that the Lieut. Governor and the  S.C. Council please order a search so they may know where they are."

At this time they also sent a petition to a church in Surich, Switzerland soliciting  Bibles, prayer books, wetc.  Later, in 1756 these Lutheran settlers se nt a request  to the congregation at Ebenezer, Ga.,asking for a pastor of their own faith to be  furnished them. The 1742 petition signed by Abraham Geiger and family is of our  interest.  In this book, Sec. 2, pg. 122 it says, "Since no records have come to  light of this Abraham Geiger in South Carolina, it is probable that he moved to the  Lutheran settlement in Georgia."  This was after the 1756 petition to Ebenezer.