Help finding records for Lenk im Simmental, Switzerland

Question

Hello,

I joined the Switzerland Project last year, and I have added and sourced several hundred profiles for my ancestors and extended families.  The State Archive of Bern has been an incredible resource in helping me find church records for almost all of the towns my ancestors were from.

One of the towns they were from was Lenk im Simmental.  However, the State Archives of Bern does not have church records online for this one.  Are there any other resources I would use to find christening/marriage/burial records in Lenk im Simmental?

One of my direct ancestors is [[Zumbrunnen-44|Salome (Zumbrunnen) Abbühl]].  Surname spelling could be Zumbrunnen / zum Brunnen / zum Brunner / Brunner.

Answer 1

Hi Mark

The church books of some Bernese municipalities are not available online, because the originals are still kept by them and not by the State Archive of Bern. So the State Archive is not allowed to publish them.

Those are the municipalities: Frutigen, Guttannen, Lenk im Simmental, Saanen.

You can buy CDs with the scans by the Genealogische Heraldische Gesellschaft Bern on their website.

More general information about the church books of Canton Bern can be found at geneal-forum. There is also a list of which village belonged to which church ("Pfarreizugehörigkeiten").

Comments

Thank you so much for this information!  I may just have to order that CD from GHGB.

---

If you will need many records from Lenk, then this is probably a good idea. At least, the quality of the CDs of those four municipalities should be much better than the quality of the Scans at State Archive Bern.

If you need only very few records, you can ask in geneal-forum, under "Bern (BE)", if someone has the CD and would do a look-up.
New topics should be named "*surname* von *Heimatort* BE". You can write in English, maybe attach a translation with DeepL.com .