It should be noted that genealogists worldwide are indebted to the Catholic Church and the many priests who over the centuries created and maintained records of births, baptisms, marriages and deaths for the residents in the communities of their churches. As well, the Mormon Church is to be credited for locating these records and making them accessible to the public by microfilming and digitizing them. The key to successful family research is having a professional who is skilled in reading the documents and who knows the culture and history of the region being researched.
 |
| Lorenz Staeheli in the Church Records - click to enlarge |
Today was an exceptionally successful day with the result that we have evidence tracing the Staeheli’s to the village of Erdhausen near Egnach with a marriage record dated 1653 and a birth record dated 1657. There is a continuous line of Staeheli’s from the present day until then. It was the teamwork of Tienne and Bernadette that produced this result. I observed them in awe for five hours as they scanned the records, found critical documents, made copies and placed ancestors in context. The limiting factor to further research is there are no readily available church records prior to these dates.
This is not work to be done by amateurs. Hand written records from only a hundred years ago can be very difficult to read and interpret. Going back two, three or four centuries the style of writing differs, the writing style of a particular priest could be neat or not, spelling of family names was not standardized but based on how the pronunciation of the name sounded to the writer and the shapes of letters of the alphabet were not standard over time. Some family names were Latinized by the priest recorder. Tienne commented that at a point in the study of documents she could no longer read the records and she speaks, reads and writes German. Bernadette possesses a unique set of skills enabling her to get to the heart of the work and ferret out the desired information.
 |
| Tienne and Bernadette engaged in research |
Tienne now has hard copies of all documents leading back to 1653. She will organize this information and add it to her family tree. Eventually this tree will be available to all Staeheli’s. I am indebted to Tienne for her diligence with this project. Her energy and enthusiasm as well as her insights to know what must be done and her knowledge of Swiss history, culture, language and society have advanced our understanding of the Staeheli family enormously. Success could not have been possible without her.
Our work at the archive was done around 3:30 and by 4 we were enjoying a drink at a nearby restaurant where Bernadette loaded family tree software on Tienne’s computer and mine, too. She was then able to transfer Tienne’s family data to my computer with ease. Bernadette left and Tienne offered to drive me back to Zurich on her way home. We stopped at the Staehli Bakery on the way to her car then hit the road for Zurich.
 |
| Tienne at the Staehli Bakery |
An hour later Tienne dropped me off at the Zurich train station and I walked to the hotel. Kathy and I shared the events of the day then had dinner. We took a stroll through the old town and returned to our room to get a good night’s sleep.
What I understand of our family is that for many generations we had been farmers in northeast Switzerland near the Bodensee. In the mid 1600’s we were in Erdhausen and the earliest record is of the marriage of Jakob Staheli to Maria on October 25, 1653. A reasonable estimate is that Jakob was born around 1630. Over time the family moved south to Kuegeliswinden (now Winden) then further to the area near St. Gallen. Events provided our family with the means and motivation to emigrate to America. This big picture has substantially satisfied my desire to know my roots. Even though there are many details to add to the story for me this had been another great day in Switzerland.
No comments:
Post a Comment