I have been putting off writing this week as I really haven’t found too much. I was able to find a passenger’s list from Germany to Philadelphia for 1727 with my ancestor’s name and family and really that was huge for me. It is the first such link I have found. The disappointment was that even though I found it and the name of the location they departed from, I could not find any church records that listed the family or gave me further information specifically about them.

What I did find was general information about the historical time and location. Many of the Germans in the part of Germany that my ancestors seemed to be from, weren’t German. I know, probably not a huge surprise to most. So, if not German, where did they come from? It seems that many had immigrated earlier to Germany from Switzerland so it may be that I am Swiss. That makes my “’Heidi’ heart happy.” 

Here is where doing research this far back is challenging for me as an amateur. Although there seems to be agreement that the family surname comes from Canton Zurich, Switzerland and that it was strongly connected to the Reformed Church, there are differences beyond that. Trying to find the exact location for church records means trying to figure out which of these theories is correct. Were they from Hirzel, Switzerland or from Pfaffikon in Canton Zurich? Were these places close enough to be one in the same at some point or one smaller and the other housed the church that they attended? Or were they from some other location all together.

I have run across this kind of debate by people writing comments in family history before. I have a surname on my mother’s side that is Brandenburg. Were they part of Brandenburg, Germany as some think or “no, people didn’t use the name of the area as their surname”? In this case, did the Hartzell surname which can be Hertzel- Hirtzel- Hirzel come from the name of the location in Switzerland or have nothing to do with it?

It seems I have a lot more work to do. Researching Switzerland might be fun! Too bad I don’t ski or own goats, but wouldn’t that be fun. (Side note: While I was a principal at Mt Rainier High School someone brought in goats to clear out a wetlands on the ground. I thought they were joking because of my name and the school mascot, the Rams. It turns out they weren’t and the goats did their job, and no cross-town rivalry did harm to the goats.)

With all that said, I am off to the “Alps” and to get ready for the next class in September on Cemeteries. Happy researching!

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.org