The answer to your question about whether Alsace was part of Germany in that time would depend upon what you mean by Germany and exactly which part of Alsace is being referred to. To the best of my knowledge there was no one republic of Germany until the later half of the 1800s, instead there were numerous german states (provinces, duchys etc.) within what was called the Holy Roman Empire. Elsass (Alsace) was part of the Holy Roman Empire until the conclusion of the Thirty Years War in 1648 when France gained it.However, even then not every village or area of Elsass became part of France.Many of them were owned by different noble families who retained them. In fact the western part of what is now Bas-Rhin, France did not become part of France until November 1793.I am speaking of the portion of Bas-Rhin which is on the Moselle side of the Vosges mountain range. That is the specific area where my immigrant ancestor left and came to Philadelphia in 1752 where he probably employed his training as a coppersmith.He had one son born in 1759 and baptized in St. Michaels Lutheran Church, Philadelphia city (not Germantown). That son was named Johann Peter Reeb just as his father was.He was my my great-great-great-great grandfather.His father, Johann Peter Reeb, the immigrant was born 1724 in a small village then known as Pisdorf or Pistorff but the French changed the name to Bischtroff-sur-Sarre.So no, we are not closely related.However, I have known of your family for close to 15 years or longer. My research of the Reeb sur-name began in the late 1970s; initially contracting professional genealogists in Germany, Belgium, France, and Switzerland until I was able to learn to read the old German script in Churchbooks and to translate the vital information from French civil records and Latin which is found in many of the Catholic Records. Our goal has been to learn as much as possible of the American Reebs, their immigrant ancestors and link them to their European records.If you want to help us to promote and preserve the family histories of the various Reeb families in both Europe and America you might want to consider joining the Reeb Families Association.