What are the best resources for primary source documents to prove my lines in early Switzerland please

Question

Are church and parish records for the Canton of Zurich online somewhere? How about government records? I am interested in records between 1400-1700 AD. so I can prove that ancestors I found are really mine.

Thank you!

Sharon

Answer 1

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Z%C3%BCrich_Canton,_Switzerland_Genealogy, did you try this site

Comments

Thank you! This is an excellent link I clicked through to a Swiss search engine. Now I have the fun of trying to translate from German! I think I will need Google translate for the that! LOL!

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Found some ancestors mentioned in this database already!!!!

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I am happy for you. I am like you, I struggle with the different languages sometimes.

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I can read some French, some German, some Italian, and some Spanish. When what I find is too much, I put it in google translate. But that old German Gothic handwriting sends me searching for people who are more familiar with German and have translated the original records.LOL!

Answer 2

Start with the Familiennamenbuch der Schweiz. Swiss citizenship is based on citizenship in a town. The Familiennamenbuch lists the home towns, time of appearance, and if known where people came from.

kunden.eye.ch/swissgen/schweiz.html is another website that is a good start for doing Swiss genealogy.

Comments

Thank you Helmut! I am looking forward to seeing what these sites have to offer!

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The Familienbuch is mainly a tool to direct you to the town archives for the home town of these families. All Swiss citizens have their vital data recorded at their home town, no matter where in Switzerland they live. Finding that home town, therefore, can open up a wide variety of records.

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Thank you! We are pretty sure the family is from three towns, Ottenbach and Affoltern and Knonau. The people I am researching are turning up in these towns, which will help me prove otherwise unproved genealogies.

Sharon

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Wow! I just clicked on Familliennamenbuch der Schweiz above and put in the surname, Landis, without any other information and got a page full of them in locations I know they lived in. I already had them in my tree, but I don't know how much documentation I have. Thanks so much, Helmut.

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Randi,

Do you have Felix Landis, Sr. and Jr. in your database? They came on the 1717 Mennonite ships, but there is much confusion about where they lived before immigrating. I want to know for sure where Felix Landis Jr. and his sister Barbara were born.

Bruce Fosnocht

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The Felix I have in my personal tree is the same one on WikiTree. He was born in the late 1580's in the Zurich area and died in Switzerland in 1642. I have three Barbara's:  one born 1705 who lived in Switzerland, death unknown,  and two who were born in Bucks County, Pennsylvannia, 1745-1796 and 1765-1837. I would need a bit more information from you to figure out which one you are referring to. I may be able to give more information. You can be almost certain, though, that the Landis family you are researching came directly from Switzerland to Pennsylvania and spread from there (mine all the way to Kentucky). Some of them were living in Alsace, Germany/France for awhile to escape religious persecution. They are descendants of Johann, the martyr, who has a plaque on the riverfront in Zurich.

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Barbara Landis(Landis-153) is the Barbara Landis I’m interested in. She is the daughter of Felix Landis, who died in Lancaster Co, PA in 1739.

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"In 1717, three brothers , Rev. Bejamin, Felix and John Landis, all Swiss Mennonites, came to America from the vicinity of Manheim on the Rhine, where they had been driven from Zurich, Switzerland, and purchased land from Penn and the Conestogoe Indians".. .

Re: Felix - "In 1731 he granted part of this property to John Binckle , as then written, who appears to have been a relative. . . His children were, Felix Jr, Anna, Barbara, Froneka." . .

Source: THE LANDIS FAMILY OF LANCASTER COUNTY A Comprehensive History of the Landis Folk From the Martyrs Era to the Arrival of the First Swiss Settlers, Giving Their Numerous Lineal Descendants, Also, an Accurate Record of the Members of the Rebellion, With a Sketch of the Start and Subsequent Growth of Landisville and Landis Valley, by D. B. Landis, 1888

This is a 90 page paperback that was available at Amazon when I bought it.