43. Treuthardt, Jakob I and Barbara Hutzli (Jakob born 1779, Barbara born 1777)

Husband:  Jakob Treuthardt (the first Jakob we know of) 
Wife:        Barbara Hutzli

Jakob and Barbara were Friedrich's grandparents.
They are my great-great-great-grandparents.

Both Jakob and Barbara were born at Zweisimmen.   Jakob's parents were the Kirchmeyer Bartolome and wife Katharina (Tritten) Treuthardt (see post #35).  It is probable that Jakob was named after an ancestor.   Creative naming for babies was an unknown thing, parents being limited in those days to using those names that had been used before, as by and for grandparents, aunts and uncles.           

Jakob was baptized on December 2, 1779, a Thursday.    He may have been born a day or two previous.  Godparents were chosen this way:   the parents of an infant boy picked two male sponsors and one woman sponsor.  For an infant girl, parents chose two female sponsors and one man sponsor.  Often these sponsors were relatives. 

Maybe infant Jakob cried at his Baptism to prove his vocal aptitude to the Choir Director.  

Jakob's Godparents or Baptismal sponsors were
 
     Chorrichter Christian Jauss
     Jakob Jaggi,  beide von "hier" (Zweisimmen)
     Barbara Tritten von St. Stephan

Both men were Zweisimmen originals (it was their Heimat) and probably lived there. The Choir Director Christian Jauss certainly encouraged Jakob, as he grew, in his singing skills.  Jakob Jaggi was distinctive in that the child was given his name (and the baby boy shared his name with a number of other Jakobs as well).   Sponsor Barbara Tritten, who was from the nearby community of St. Stephan, may have been Jakob's aunt or cousin (sister or niece of Katharina).

During his childhood, Jakob learned a lot about the church, as his father Bartolome was the Kirchmeyer.   The family's life revolved around the church.  Music had an important role in Jakob's life.  


Historical U.S. note:   On July 4, 1776 the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress of the United States at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.   This was only three years before "our" Jakob was born, and he was eight years old when the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1787.   Though world news was slow in traveling around the world, these Swiss people would have been following it.   

(to be continued) 

  

42. Switzerland, folklore, Wilhelm Tell, circa 1291

The ancient documents that existed in the Swiss lands were copied by Scribe Hans Schriber in 1474 A.D., into The White Book of Sarnen.  The White Book is as close to the ancient events as anyone will discover.  Since Schriber recorded all the important historical treaties and events up to that time, and he included Wilhelm Tall (or Tell) in the White Book;  it is my readers' prerogative and option whether or not to believe that Wilhelm Tell existed, simply because the events of his memorable life were recorded by an expert scribe who, however, was not a witness to the events 183 years previous.

In my elementary school days, from books and from our teachers, we were taught that William Tell of Switzerland was an icon of liberty and freedom of the individual, and by extension, democracy and good government.   We never doubted that he existed, although we understood that he was idealized to the point of being mythical. 

On the other hand, nowadays, so much brilliant knowledge and breathtaking information is accessible to the average person, through the Internet.    New technology progresses steadily forward, making the old things obsolete.   Inventors always build on the best, you know, and create better technology that makes life easier, more sensible and convenient for us users.   We forget the old ways, traditions and legends.   They have been superseded by new stuff which has an extremely short track history;   but which, as I have established with prejudice, is far better than the old.   

That's the status of William Tell.   Only a few old-fashioned sorts would admit to arguing on his behalf. 

In approximately 1291 William Tell, a heroic Swiss man (or legend), performed both good and evil deeds.   He both obeyed and defied the evil foreign ruler of his time (namely, Gessler of Hapsburg fame).   Depending on the point of view of the person watching (all down the centuries), either obedience or defiance could be considered a good deed.    He defied authority (bad deed to authority -- good deed to the common folk) by not bowing down and worshiping the hat of the ruler.   Yes, that's right, a hat.  It was hung on a pole in the town square, and all who passed it were to bow down to it.    As punishment for his defiance, the authority demanded of Wilhelm that he endanger the life of, and possibly kill, his own son.  He was to shoot, with crossbow and arrow, an apple off his son's head (definitely an evil deed enforced by an evil ruler).    Wilhelm, however, was so skilled and good an archer and marksman, that he accomplished both obedience (good deed) and defiance (bad deed) in one exquisite shot (good deed) of an arrow, hitting the apple and sparing his son's life.    In doing so, he made life symbolically better for his fellow Swiss compatriots, perhaps not in the short term, but certainly by taking a stand for liberty by -- his last bad deed -- murdering the evil foreign ruler.   

That is the long and short of the tale of William Tell.   He equalized the good and bad pretty well.  

Whether or not Wilhelm actually existed, existed but had a different name, performed courageous deeds that his neighbors could not do, or discouraged his enemy;  the least we can say about him is that the story of Wilhelm was recognized by the scribe Hans Schriber as worth writing down.  
 

41. Hans Schriber and a few lines in the "White Book"

My sister asked about the handwriting in the "White Book."  For someone who knows German, it would be fairly straightforward to read.    For us who don't know German, the Swiss Staatsarchiv Obwalden has made it easier by transliterating a few lines.

First let's find the good example they provide, which I copied within my post #40.    Start there, in the description at the bottom of the page, with the German quotation in italics (beginning at "Weisses Buch" S. 447:).    Let's compare that to Hans' calligraphy. 

After opening a new tab to save your place in the post, click on "S. 447".   This will take you to the "White Book" website, immediately to that page (Seite).  Zoom to the third level.   Scroll to the last paragraph on the page.    Now, compare the transliterated version from the Staatsarchiv, which I copied into my post #40, to the script that Hans wrote in 1470 in old (or Middle?) German.

It is a reference to Wilhelm Tell (also written "Tall" or "Thall").    Start with the first words, Nu was der Tall..."    Word for word, for three-and-a-half lines, you can pick out the quotation.   Here we read that Tall was a good marksman.   Do you see the word "öpfel" at the very end of the third line of that paragraph?    That refers to the apple placed on the head of Tell's young son.  Tell's perfectly-aimed arrow shot the apple without harming the boy.  

This is "educated" German, not a dialect or even very Allemanisch-like.   This German script actually looks closer (to me) to modern German, than English of the 15th century looks to modern English.    Maybe my Swiss friend can deny or confirm that statement.    I am comparing Hans' extremely polished writing to many Pfarrars (pastors) or Schreibers (scribes) of future centuries, whose handwritings were cryptic and unreadable, abbreviated and plain bad.   Those crudely-taught "non-professionals" didn't care for clarity.   Clarity and polish is so important in handwriting!   

Hans truly cared that more than 500 years later, we can still decipher his clear handwriting, even if we don't know the language he used.   He trusted that we could figure out his language as long as we could read the letters.   It makes me wonder whether he corrected the wordings of the treaties and alliances.    

Indeed, if he had thought otherwise, he would not have bothered to spend his life doing this writing.   It was his goal that his writing be understood centuries later.  

Hans actually has "his" own article in the German Wikipedia.   In the article, we learn that his father was a Schreiber, in a village called Wolfenschiessen.   Hans' brother Jost, a Benedictine priest, was pastor in Küssnacht.   In the 15th century, this was a family with education.   Maybe that is how the family got their surname, from a family history of skill in handwriting.   This was the book printing of the era.    

We can easily believe that Hans was brought up to his profession by his father.   Hans started writing at a young age.   As an apprentice, Hans learned (from his father, surely) how to whittle the end of a quill to make a nib for writing.   Hans would have made many, many quills in his lifetime!   When he was writing his "White Book" a trainee was preparing quills for Hans, so that Hans could spend all his time copying and writing.

Hans was a professional.   See how straight his lines are, as if he were writing on ruled paper, almost perfectly.   That is very hard to accomplish.   Normally nowadays, a calligrapher draws light, fine lines in pencil, calligraphs above the penciled lines, and then erases the lines.    This is time-consuming. 

It is very hard to write a straight line.   I admire Hans for his skill.   When I calligraphed addresses on wedding invitation envelopes, I took a short cut.   I scotchtaped three strands of dental floss to a board on which I was working.    Then I placed the envelope underneath the floss and used the strands as guidelines.   This way I did not have to erase lines.  

It looks to me as if he was writing the lines freehand (or maybe he was using a string).   There are two vertical (left and right) and two horizontal guidelines (top and bottom) on each page.   He wrote the first line of the page on a guideline, and the last line was written above the bottom guideline.   He was so good, he could make parallel all the in-between lines.   He wrote on the backs of the pages as well.   

Above all notice his letters.   They are regular and well done, it appears that the copy is engraved or carved, as if it were published.   With only a little practice, by observing how he draws his letters, you can pick out words easily, especially proper nouns.   On page 454, see how many times he wrote the word "Bern."   I counted six times.    Because Hans is so precise, one can work out the code quite well.

When I published the post #40 on Monday, there was a large number of "hits" overnight, almost all from the U.S.   In this post #41 I have avoided using the full name of the "White Book," so as not to attract so many people.  This is a small, esoteric blog, and the audience is my family and those special people who are willing to return repeatedly to read about an ordinary family from Switzerland who immigrated to Texas and became the family who are US.

Welcome, and thanks, to the U.S. readers and to those in Europe who are following my blog!    I am honored, as much for your attention as for the opportunity to share this information.   
   
 

40. Switzerland, Historical documents, "White Book of Sarnen," 1470-1607

In the website of Swiss history, you noticed or figured out that in the early centuries, there were many treaties and alliances made among the peoples of the lands which today is Switzerland.    There were the Hapsburgs who needed to be beaten at the Battle at Morgarten in 1315 (important date!).   The Swiss Confederacy consisted of Lucerne and and Zurich, then Glarus, and Zug, and Bern.   By 1353 there were 8 members of the Confederacy.   (I am reporting all this from the timeline.)   This is not including all the minor treaties.

In 1474 these treaties and alliances of the Old Confederation (77 of them) were compiled and all the words copied onto new pages.   One "country scribe" did the copying, Hans Schriber of Sarnen.    [Maybe he picked that name for himself, or maybe he was born into it.   What a great name for him to have, as that sounds like scrivening and scribing!]  Here in one book were all the cantonal archives!    The pages were bound in white parchment (pigskin).   One source says it has 258 pages, another says it has 506 pages.   It depends on the way the pages were counted.

The book was entitled, "The White Book of Sarnen." 

The book was lost, and then it was found, in 1856!  (so it is said.)   It was found in Sarnen (strangely enough), and it has been preserved ever since in the city archives.    

Naturally, for something so old, there are many controversies surrounding it.   What happened to the original treaties and alliances?   Was the White Book recopied from a previous book of 1426?   [Where does that date come from?]   Are other copies of the White Book extant that possibly Herr Schriber or somebody else took time to write?

Here are a couple of websites describing the White Book of Sarnen:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/tell/White_Book_of_Sarnen.html?cid=251958


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Book_of_Sarnen

And now, the most astonishing thing of all.    You can view this book on the Internet!!!!    You can admire Hans Schriber's even handscribe, and it is readable, more readable than quite a few other country scribes I've tried to decipher.    It was put online on 03/22/2012.   Try it!

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/staow/Shelfmark/20/0

Here is what is said about the "White Book of Sarnen."  

Sarnen, Staatsarchiv Obwalden, Sig. A.02.CHR.0003
Paper - 508 pp. - 30-30.5 x 21-22 cm - Sarnen - 1470-1607

"The White Book of Sarnen was assembled by Obwald Chancellry Clerk Hans Schriber (1436-1478).  It is called the "White Book" because it was originally bound in a white pigskin cover.   It contains copies of Privileges, Covenants, and important decisions rendered by the arbitral tribunals and Landesgemeinde beginning in 1316, written for the most part in the years 1470/1471.   It is the most important cartulary from the Obwald Chancellry during the late middle ages, and, as such, is still part of the city archives today.   However, this book is famous above all because it contains the oldest version of the story of the founding of the Swiss Confederation on about 25 of its pages (S.441-465).  The volume also includes the story of Wilhelm Tell and the famous shooting of the apple:  ("Weisses Buch", S.447:   Nu was der Tall gar ein güt Schütz er hat oüch hübsche kind die beschigt der herre zü imm / vnd twang den Tallen mit sinen knechten / das der Tall eim sim kind ein öbfel ab dem höupt müst schiessen...)."  

Note: That "oüch" could refer to a hand that hurts from handwriting 77 documents in a year!
Thank you, Hans!   

39. Switzerland, Swiss Open-Air Museum at Ballenberg

For a view of rural life, look at this feast of images that come from central Switzerland. 

 http://ballenberg.ch/en/Info/Portrait

View the film and the 360 degree panoramas, and you will have an idea of the extensive nature park and the variety of crafts buildings that are interspersed all over the property in this open-air museum.  One can walk all over the 660,000 square meters (163 acres), if he cares to hike the paths, around and into homes, workshops and farm buildings from almost every canton from the 14th to 19th centuries. 

When we toured this place twenty years ago, it was called,  

"The Swiss Open-Air Museum of Vernacular architecture, country life and crafts at Ballenberg." 

This remarkable place has expanded its property, added many buildings and shortened its name. 

In 1993 our family strolled through this open-air museum (just like that family in the film), only I recall a few more complaints from our three children than these happy larks.   Even though it was less developed then, we did not nearly spend enough time or see all the buildings. It rained hard the day we were there, and we took shelter in one of the buildings during a downpour.   The rain did not dampen our spirits, and perhaps that day helped inspire our daughter to become a meteorologist.  

Regarding that Bauernhaus (farmhouse) and Speicher (storehouse) from Ostermundigen, Bern Canton, this is what I wrote after seeing it,

"Under one roof are the spacious farmhouse living quarters and also the agricultural section, including a barn with stall for animals, a threshroom and feed passage.   In the back a driveway leads over a ramp onto the barn where hay and grain were stored.   Carts, wagons and farm implements were stored here also.

"The storehouse contained food (vegetables, potatoes and cider in the cellar, grains of all kinds stored in bins, smoked meats and dried fruits);  the farmer's treasures and other valuables (clothes, linens and important papers) were also stored here.

"The house is painted grey to give the impression of stone.   The front of the house has a gabled balcony with a boxed-in rounded arch called a Rundi.   False windows are painted on the balcony wall along with the family coat of arms and paintings of flowers and birds."

The acquisitions come from places where demolitions occur, because of modernization, to clear the way for railroads and other constructions.    The buildings are taken apart piece by piece and reconstructed on this property.    The expense must be astronomical.   The museum closes at the end of October and remains closed for winter, until it reopens in April.   

38. Addition to Posts 24, 25 and 27. "Railway System" in France

I found this reference, with a description from July, 1851 of a first-hand account of travel from Geneva to Dijon by diligence, and from Dijon to Paris by rail.   This is a similar route that the Treuthardts, emigrants from Switzerland, would have taken on their way to LeHavre, France, from where they left by ship for New York.  This is copied from a Kindle edition of a book from Project Gutenberg.   Credit for the quotation is given at the end.


"Tomorrow we are off for Paris and go by diligence to Dijon;  thence by railroad.

"We started from Geneva in the diligence for Dijon, a long drag of one hundred and twenty miles.  The weather was oppressively hot, and certainly the roads could not well be more dusty... We entered France about four miles on our way, and came to Ferney... We passed Gex, and ascended the Jura; then to La Vattay.   The view from the mountain of the lake [of Geneva] and Mont Blanc, together with the Alpine range, is never to be forgotten by one who has the good fortune to see it.   I feel that I am acquiring new emotions and gathering up new sources of thought in this journey, and that I cannot be a trifler and waster away of life in such a world... I now feel as if life itself would not be long enough to do all I should like to effect.

"The scenery of this journey has set me thinking; and so I have written rather sentimentally, but truly.

"At St. Laurent we came to the French custom-house, and a pretty thorough overhauling [of our possessions] they made.   I believe the fellow took some of our engravings, which they carried out of the room.

"Still up, till we reached Morez, the Jura's greatest elevation.  The last half was travelled in the night; so I cannot give you the line of march.   We got to Dijon about eight in the morning, and only had time to get a hasty breakfast at the railroad station; but we had quite a look at the city before entering the cars for Paris.

"Dijon is the capital town of the old Burgundy, and is a fine old place, with nearly thirty thousand inhabitants.   Here is a great show of churches, and they seem built for all ages.   The Cathedral is a noble-looking edifice.   We had no time to see the old ducal palace.. We saw some beautiful promenades, but only glanced at them.   St. Bernard was born only a mile outside the walls, in a castle yet standing.

"The new railroad had just been opened to Paris, and is one hundred and ninety-six miles and a half of most capital track.   We went through Verrey, Montbard, Nuits, Tonnerre, La Roche, Joigny, Sens, Montereau, Fontainebleau, Melun, to Paris...  Near Tonnerre is the château of Coligny d'Audelot, brother to the admiral massacred on St. Bartholomew's night.   Sens is famous for its Cathedral, which is apparently very splendid, and here are the vestments of Thomas à Becket, and the very altar at which he knelt...   Fontainebleau is beautifully placed in the midst of a forest.   Here is a palace, and at this place Napoleon bade farewell to the Old Guard, in 1814.   This place is celebrated for its grapes, raised in the vicinity.  Melun was known in Cæsar's time, and in 1520 was taken by  Henry V., of England, and held ten years.   We reached Paris on the evening of Saturday, and...occupied our old quarters at the Hotel Windsor.   I went off to my favorite bathing-house at the Seine [River], and felt wondrously refreshed after the heat and dust of more than three hundred miles and two days' journeying."

Quotation from Choules, J.O. [Editor], 1851, Young Americans Abroad Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland.  

from Project Gutenburg,
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20625
Author:  Choules J.O. [Editor]
Language: English
Call number: gutenberg etext# 20625
Book contributor: Project Gutenberg

Identifier:  youngamericansab20625gut
Licenseurl:  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Rights:  Public domain in the USA
Source:  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20625
Creator-alias: Verschillende
Filesxml:  Tue Jul 3 19:18:50 UTC 2012
Identifier-access:  http://archive.org/details/youngamericansab20625gut
Identifier-ark:    ark:/13960/t59c83z9x


Kindle edition:
Young Americans Abroad;  or Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland.   Publisher Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 89 Washington Street, 1852.   Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1851, by Gould and Lincoln,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Distict of Massachusetts
Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry

"To George Sumner, Esq., as a slight tribute of gratitude for his kind attentions in Paris, and in admiration of talents devoted to the interests of freedom, these letters are respectfully dedicated, by his obliged friends, the authors."  

Kindle Location 2876

37. Switzerland, Internet references to its history and "Confoederatio Helvetica"

We are in Switzerland, staying awhile.   Though this blogsite is for the purpose of telling family history, we need to know some Swiss history and culture, for which the Internet is a rich source of information.   

An excellent overview is this website, "The History of Switzerland." 

http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch

Here is concise but not overwhelming summaries of the prehistoric era, Helvetian period (500 B.C. to 400 A.D.), Roman times (58 B.C.-400 A.D.), Middle ages (400-800 A.D.), the Old Swiss Confederacy (1291-1515), Reformation period (from mid-15th century), the Swiss Revolution and the Helvetic Republic (1798), the Swiss Federal Constitution of 1848, Napoleonic wars, World War II, to post-modern times.  There is a timeline to major events, and description of the Swiss flag (originating from 1848), and Cantonal coats of arms.

Thus we can place our early ancestors, Bartolome and Katharina Treuthardt, in later Reformation times, and during the political upheaval of the Swiss Revolution and Helvetic Republic.

For centuries young Swiss men had served as mercenary troops in foreign countries, especially France and Italy.    The mighty Swiss military force was admired and respected by all of Europe.    However, at the time of the French Revolution, on August 10, 1792 approximately 800 Swiss mercenary troops who were defending the French king at Paris, "ran low on ammunition" and were killed at the Tuileries (the palace of King Louis XVI).  This symbolized the end of ancient Swiss fighting techniques, but not the end of battles or wars.  

In the 1790's within Switzerland, many revolts by the rural folks against the rich landowning families were gaining ground for freedom and liberty of the individual.   The Helvetic Republic was established in 1798.    It was not lasting in success for numerous reasons, however, and in 1802 the frustrated but ill-equipped rural population of the northern areas engaged in a "stäcklichrieg" or civil war of the sticks, using wooden clubs as weapons against the forces of the Helvetic Republic.    The Republic collapsed (fragile indeed to succumb to sticks).    Napoleon came in as "mediator" in 1803.   (And this is where we will stop with politics now).      

Be aware that the "label" or keyword HELVETIA "can be found on Swiss coins and postal stamps, while the abbreviation "ch" stands for Confoederatio Helvetica, the Latin version of 'Swiss Confederation'."    Helvetia, or CH, is a generic term for Switzerland that avoids favoring any single language group of people.   The CH decal on Swiss cars, applies to someone who may speak German, French or Italian.  "Switzerland's top level internet domain" is .ch.  

All of the above information is from the History of Switzerland website, and there is much, much more.

36. My Switzerland authorities -- Herr Joder

This is how I learned the names of Bartolome and Katharina (and their descendants).

It was the result of the work of Herr Hans Joder of Switzerland.  He is a Swiss genealogist.   In the summer of 2008, he drove around Switzerland searching for the Treuthardt parish records.   Herr Joder copied Swiss records and meticulously compiled the information in a notebook for me.  

When we traveled to Switzerland in 2009, we went to visit Herr Joder and his kind wife.   It was only a short visit, and we wished it were longer.   We sat around the table having cookies and a beverage and talking about the information briefly.   They spoke German, and Benjamin could understand most of it.   We did well communicating, better than one would think.   What special memories these are, to have met the man and his wife who graciously contributed to this study.  

I will give more details later about this man's work, but for now I wanted to recognize his help.    How did Herr Joder come to help me with this information?

Since I am working backwards in time, that is a future post!

35. Treuthardt, Bartolome and Katharina Tritten, both born 1740's-50's (estimated)

They are the earliest known Treuthardts from Zweisimmen parish records. 

Husband:  Hr. Kirchmeyer Bartolome Treuthardt
Wife:        Katharina Tritten

These were Friedrich's great-grandparents.
They are my great-great-great-great-grandparents.
Bartolome and Katharina lived at Zweisimmen.


Bartolome was the Kirchmeyer (Küster or Verwalter) at Zweismmen.

A Kirchmeyer (Küster or Verwalter) is what in English would be called "verger" or "sexton."
He was a worker, administrator, trustee or custodian of the church at Zweisimmen.   Depending on the size and complexity of the church, he may have been the lowliest of custodial workers, or he may have supervised workers who, when called upon, performed many of the duties for pay (small).

The definition of "verger," a word used chiefly in the Church of England, is "a church official who acts as caretaker and attendant, looking after the interior of a church and often the vestments and church furnishings."

The definition of "sexton" is "a person employed to act as caretaker of a church and its contents and graveyard, and often also as bell-ringer, gravedigger, etc."  


A sexton was responsible for the graveyard.    He dug or oversaw the digging of the graves and burial of the bodies in the church graveyard.   He maintained the gravestones, the grass and vegetation, fences, etc., either personally or with help from others.    If animals were involved (e.g. sheep, goats or cows to graze the grass), he would have managed (or borrowed) them too.  

He took care of the church building and, either personally or with assistants, oversaw the cleaning of its interior.    This would have included all the upkeep in maintaining the structure inside and outside.

As the manager of the church's contents, he would have monitored all the activities that pertained to the church, whatever that meant, in order to guard and protect its contents.    He assisted the pastor with the vestments, made sure the textiles were clean and that the proper colors were used at the proper times.   He would have hung and put them away safely (maybe kept locked in a cabinet).   No doubt he oversaw the sewing of new vestments and hangings, when they got worn out.   If there was an organ, he would have kept an eye on it and maybe an ear as well.

Whatever was needed for the performance of church services, such as replacing candles, setting out communion ware, keeping the baptismal font, lecterns and pulpit clean and polished, must have been his responsibility.   The smaller items surely were stored away when not in use, probably under lock and key.    He would have been responsible for the keys.   

If there were mischievous boys around, he would have made sure they didn't put graffiti on those pretty painted walls.    (To clarify here, no Swiss boy would have even THOUGHT of doing such a thing.   He would have been discovered at once and punished with a sound whipping or other memorable painful and emotional display of wrath by a number of prominent villagers). 

The Kirchmeyer was the bell-ringer (and polisher).   As such, he would have known the language of the bells.   Whether that was ringing bells on Sunday morning to call the villagers to the divine service, or for announcing deaths (ringing the number of years of a person's life), or ringing for special occasions, he probably trusted no one else to ring the bells.


The above comments are my interpretation of what a Kirchmeyer at Zweisimmen may have accomplished, based upon the definitions of the words "verger" and "sexton."   Bartolome certainly would have had a large responsibility for the management of the church, if he did all those things.

In one description of a sexton in an English church in the 1800's, I discovered that the sexton worked with the documents of the church, meaning that he served as a type of librarian and caretaker for the archives (i.e., was literate).    In the latter part of the 1700's a book and archive collection would have been precious.    [In the case of this English sexton, his very literate young son had access to the library key and he would enter on his own and read the books.   Sometimes he took the books.   Later he became a good author.]   

Extending those ideas, if our Bartolome did many or all those things, he would have known a great deal about the community in addition to his knowledge of church governance.   Being an original member of the community, more longterm in his position than the pastors (who came and went every few years), he would have trained the new pastors in the goings-on of their church and community.    He may have provided them respectful and reverential counseling.    In these ways, checks and balances were provided to each other by the Pastor (who came from someplace else) and the Kirchmeyer (who was, for the most part, a permanent fixture in the church) for the over-all orderly running of the church.

It would not have been an easy job.   The depths of the responsibilities made this a full-time profession.  Bartolome and Katharina must have lived near the church so that he could spend most of his time there.   It is not unreasonable to assume that Katharina had a part in some of these responsibilities as well, in supporting the position of her husband.   In summary, Bartolome was a glorified servant, and he probably did not feel very glorified when he was performing some of the duties.   Hmmm.   That sounds like a musician.

Speaking of music, I have a feeling that the church had an organ, and that Bartolome was a singer himself.   It is pretty certain that he was friends with the choir director.  

I do not know how many children Bartolome and Katharina had.    Their son Jacob was born in 1779, and he was baptized on December 2.   One of Jacob's Baptismal sponsors was the choir director from Zweisimmen.    

(See my post #46 for another mention of Bartolome.)  

34. Birth -- Gottlieb Krieg, 1871

Today, April 2, is the anniversary date of Gottlieb Krieg's birthday.   He was born in Gysenstein, Bern Canton, Switzerland.   He immigrated to Texas through New York, in 1888 when he was 17 years old.   He and Ida Treuthardt were married at Walburg, Williamson County, Texas, on December 19, 1895, at St. Peter Lutheran Church.    They lived and farmed at the Swiss colony,  New Bern, about seven miles southwest of Taylor, Texas.   Gottlieb died at the age of 40 on July 27, 1911 at Roy, New Mexico.    He had gotten a lung infection (thought at that time to be tuberculosis), and had gone to New Mexico to try to improve in the dry climate.   He did not improve but died.    His brothers went to New Mexico to bring the body home via train.    The funeral was on the front porch.   He is buried at New Bern Cemetery. 

33. Switzerland, our family trip in 1993

Exploring Switzerland in 1993

Eddie and I took our three young children (Benjamin, 16, Bryce, 12, Angelyn, 8) to Switzerland and Germany for three weeks.   We rented a 5-passenger sedan, a Peugeot, and made jaunts into areas where the Kriegs and Treuthardts had lived.    Those areas included Zweisimmen and Aubonne and Lausanne.   (Love those double consonants!)  

Zweisimmen (zwei = two) is situated at the confluence of the Simme and the Kleine Simme Rivers, thus it is "Two Simme's."   Being in Zweisimmen on a Sunday morning, we went to the village church and participated in a German service.   We made a mistake right away.   We sat in somebody's pew.    The family came in, stood at the pew and wondered what to do.   We offered to move, but they declined and sat in another place.    Benjamin was already taking German in high school and could understand the topic the pastor talked about.   The church is (of course!) all wood, and there is a large clock on the steeple.    The walls have old artwork painted on them, as well as Scripture verses (in German) written in large letters.   A lovely organ was being played masterfully for the liturgy and hymns.    At the offertory, and at the end of the service, the organist played while the people sat quietly.   (This doesn't happen so often in America, as people don't have that same etiquette for music.)  After the service we stayed awhile and talked to a couple of people, so they would know who we were.    

Also we walked around the cemetery and saw a few tombstones with Treuthardt names engraved on them.   Since these stones are relatively recent, we surmised that there were still Treuthardts living here.   Margaret had been to Zweisimmen before us, and she had found out that there were two elderly men named Treuthardt living a little ways apart from the town, who did not speak English.   That is more than 20 years ago.       

The "language line" was right outside Zweisimmen.   On one side of that line inside the village, the highway signs were in German.   On the other side, the highway signs were in French, which is what people spoke there.   Here were indications of the language fluency of the Treuthardts, and it is easy to see how the Treuthardts could speak more than one language.   What they really speak is the "Swiss" or rather Allemanisch, which is another subject.  

We drove around the north side of Lake Geneva, up to and through Aubonne briefly.    In the neighborhood, east of Aubonne is Morges, where there is a museum in a fortress called Château-arseneaux, Musée Militaire Vaudois -- The Military Museum of Canton Vaud.    We toured the museum and got an inkling of the history of the military of the Swiss, situated as they are in the middle of the continent with potentially hostile nations all around them.

With a name like Krieg (generally thought by our family to mean, "war"), we certainly felt right at home.

In Lausanne we walked to the Cathedral.   It is the largest Gothic cathedral in Switzerland, consecrated in 1275 A.D.   After admiring the interior architecture and art, and the large organ, we climbed a steep staircase to the roof of the Cathedral and marveled at the vistas of the surrounding Alps and Lake Geneva in the crisp air.   Lausanne retains the quaint ancient nightly practice of a watchman atop the cathedral in the middle of every night calling out the hours in all four directions, from 10:00 o'clock p.m. until 2:00 o'clock a.m.

Driving around the cities and country roads, seeing the beautiful countryside and taking in Swiss history and culture as we could, gave us a sense of what those people must have missed when they came to Texas.   Texas has its charms, but it doesn't have Alps and glacier valleys or crystal blue lakes and rivers and beautiful vistas at every turn.    These images were impressed in my mind as this family study progressed.

The Swiss people left Switzerland for Texas in the 1880's because of economic hardship and severe times.    We were visiting the same regions that the Treuthardts left 110 years earlier.
Thanks to Eddie for doing this trip for me!     

~Taken from my writing of April 27, 2004

"Friedrich Christian Treuthardt, 

the Family History Study for Great-Grandfather" 

 

But there is a twist to the reasons that the Treuthardts left Switzerland.    For them it was not all economic hardship.  

32. Switzerland, Bern Canton, Zweisimmen -- the Heimat of the Treuthardts

Zweisimmen is and always will be the Heimat of the Treuthardt family.   

In Switzerland "nobody" cares where you are born, they want to know where did the family originate, what is its Heimat?   This is the registry place, where the civil records of the family are kept, and where the family name is known.   In a perfect system, that means that if someone is born, marries or dies in another place besides the Heimat, the event should be reported to his Heimat, and it is recorded there, as well as in the city where the event occurred.   The person's identity is associated for all time with this place, for his life and the lives of his children, etc., regardless of whether he lived apart from it or ever saw it.   Switzerland does a good job of keeping track of its citizens this way.  

Early in my Treuthardt study, Zweisimmen appeared to be a prime candidate as their Heimat.      I thought I was looking for Friedrich's birthplace and place of residence.   The former turned out to be true, the latter turned out to be troublesome.  

In many genealogical libraries is a book called Index to Surnames in Switzerland.   In 1992 I found this book in Plano, Texas at the regional Family History Library of the LDS (Mormon) church.   The Treuthardt surname is included in this book and shows the surname having derived from Zweisimmen from "before 1800."   There were a few other cities mentioned, of Treuthardt people living in other cantons after that time.

In the same library, however, no Treuthardts were indexed in the data base of the International Genealogical Index, neither the Parent Index nor the Surname Index.

Americans are conditioned to a society which records the birthplace of a person -- not where his family came from.    In both America and Switzerland a researcher will or may have trouble finding the residence/s of an ancestor who moved away from his birth family's location (Heimat) and started a family in a new place.    Theoretically, the Swiss records should record those other places more reliably than in America.  


In 1995 I was brave enough to write and send money to Zweisimmen with a request for information.   Herr G. Janz of the Zweisimmen Zivilstandsamt, sent me critical information about the Treuthardt family from the records of the Bürger-registern.    Friedrich, his parents and grandparents were listed, complete with names and dates of births and deaths.    This was a benchmark day for my family study.    I was already about 17 official years into the study, since my interview of Aunt Anna in West Texas.      


Only, unbeknownst to me at the time, Friedrich never lived in Zweisimmen.    Learning the location of Friedrich's actual residences was a harder problem to solve, and it eluded me.     

It was important to me to learn more than just a few dates.   I wanted to learn something about Friedrich's family, his two marriages, his wives and all his children.   I wanted to know about his profession, where he worked in Switzerland, and detailed information on what he did.   I also wanted to know something about his personality and character.  At the least I needed to know where he lived in Switzerland.   Also, I wanted to visit those places.    

I figured, my only hope was to find a key person who could help me.   I needed to find a native Swiss person living in Switzerland who spoke English, German and Swiss.   I needed help from somebody who was (preferably) retired and who had a little extra time, who cared about the technical profession of my great-grandfather, and who was reliable -- and mainly, somebody who would help some lowly American locate her Swiss family of long ago.  I could have more hopefully asked for the moon. 

But that story is a few posts in the future.   
   

31. My family authorities, extended -- Margaret and Marguerite

My family authorities became extended during the late 1990's, when I was joyfully introduced to relatives in the other two branches of the Treuthardt family in Texas.   The three branches -- the children of Will, Ida, and Arnold -- had been acquainted through the first-generation Texan cousins (same tier on the family tree as my father Julius).   Our Krieg side had lost contact with the Treuthardts around the 1940's-1950's (all the immigrant ancestors were long deceased by then).   Though this was unfortunate, it is the natural way of things as families grow, spread and lose contact with each other. 

Finding these new relatives was a splendid happening for me.  Not only did I find dear relatives, but also they helped to "complete" the Texas phase of this study of the Treuthardt family.   Not that this study could ever be completed!    But this history would not be finished without representation from all three branches.    To simplify this post, I am going to tell you about only two of these people.    Many blessings from God on this study derived from having found these ladies.     Having these two ladies on my side gave a personal aspect to the ancestors I was attempting to find.

On the Will Treuthardt side is Margaret, the great-grandchild of Friedrich Treuthardt.    From the Arnold Treuthardt side is Marguerite, Arnold's daughter and Friedrich's granddaughter.  

Margaret has been to Switzerland 7 times.    The last time she went to Switzerland she celebrated her 90th birthday while she was there.    She would not mind if I mention her present age -- 93.   Margaret and I became the best of friends, and she has given me much encouragement in these 16 years!   

In her childhood, Marguerite lived next door to her grandmother Anna Geiser Treuthardt -- who is my great-grandmother.     Only once did I get to meet Marguerite, but seeing her and apprehending even a small amount of the treasure of her memories, meant very much to me.   Marguerite also went to Switzerland several times. 

This is how I was reunited with these two ladies (and several others not mentioned here) who greatly enhanced this study.    

In the early years I was researching any and all family lines.    Whichever one was producing fruit, that was the one I pursued for the moment.    The Krieg line had been my original pursuit.   It was my Krieg distant cousin, Lillian, who was the key to finding the Treuthardts.    Lillian was the granddaughter of my grandfather Gottlieb Krieg's sister.    Lillian had inherited her grandmother's albums and materials and had shared the knowledge of them with me.    She and I were working together on the Kriegs -- mostly she was telling me what she knew, and I was recording what she said.    Both of us were trying to put it together.  

I had shared with her the Baptism photograph of 1897 (see my blog posts 15 and 16), as there were Krieg people in it.   She took the picture and showed it to her neighbor, who was also doing some Swiss genealogy.

Her neighbor, Ann Warner, recognized the Treuthardts immediately.   Ann was the granddaughter of Arnold, and great-granddaughter of Friedrich Treuthardt!    Ann was very excited and asked Lillian could she share it with her Treuthardt cousin -- (guess who!) Margaret!   

So from the Krieg side came information in an accidental way, about the Treuthardts.

My friendship with Margaret, and then at last getting a single precious visit with Marguerite, gave new life to the history.   The study took up a life of its own and swept us along after that.    

And that is how family history research works!!!  

Not the least of our discoveries was the fact that all three of us (and many others of the Treuthardts besides!!) had traveled to Switzerland, loved talking about it, and wanted to know more about the Swiss history.