A Tip For Beginning Swiss Research

This article found in http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/genealogy/ezine/2004September.pdf

by John D. Beatty

One of the cardinal rules of successful European genealogical research is the need for determining a family’s precise place of origin before its emigration. Usually one can find important congregational and vital records in that town or one nearby. Switzerland, however, offers a twist to this rule. The Swiss hold voting and citizenship rights to specific towns, and they often maintain those rights for generations. When a family member moves to a different community, the bonds to the old community or “home place” often remain, with vital and other court records maintained by its town registrar. The prevalence of this citizenship custom offers a potential bonanza for genealogists, since certain surnames have long associations with specific towns that stretch back many centuries.

My own ancestral family, the Fiechters of Durrenroth in Emmental, Canton Bern, have maintained citizenship rights there since the middle ages, despite having many branches that have moved around Switzerland since that time.

A useful resource for determining the link between Swiss families and their ancestral towns is the Familiennamenbuch der Schweiz, which was reissued in 1989 under a new title, Swiss Surnames: A Complete Register. This three-volume work offers an alphabetical listing of surnames, together with the towns and cantons with which they were affiliated according to a 1962 citizenship survey. Surnames with prefixes such as von Allmen appear under the prefix letter, such as “v,” though spelling variations are each given a separate listing. After the place name appears the date of the first grant of citizenship, if known, which usually dates from the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Long ancestral associations that predate citizenship records are marked with an “a.” The first volume contains a useful introduction, a more detailed user guide, a list of abbreviations, and a list of Swiss communities that have disappeared because of suburban expansion.

Genealogists with an interest in Switzerland, but who lack the name of their ancestor’s hometown, should make Swiss Surnames a tool of first resort. With increasing numbers of Swiss parish registers microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, it may be possible to find the lost immigrant in a Swiss parish record using clues obtained from this source.

Genealogy Gems [1]: News from the Fort Wayne Library
No. 7, September 30, 2004