It all began with an article entitled “Baer Families of Ottenbach, Switzerland and Lehigh County, Pennsylvania” by Jane Evans Best. The article was published in Mennonite Family History, and details the history of the Baer family. On page 55 I found my ancestor Maria Elizabeth Baer. The article said that she was the daughter of Melchior Baer and “Anna Elisabetha Abegglen of the Oberland, Bern, Switzerland.” She was born on August 15th, 1697. The article also said that Anna Elisabetha’s father was “Kilian Abecky of Hasleland, Bern.”
When I saw this information I was intrigued. The article traced the history of the Baer family in great detail, but said nothing more about Anna Elisabetha. Where was she born? Was her father’s name really Kilian (strange name for 17th century Switzerland, no?) And what was really the family’s name – Abegglen or Abecky? Another source recorded the name as Abeckli. Which one was it? I had lots of questions and few answers.
A quick search on google for the family names revealed that there was nothing to be found on the web about the exact location of Oberland or Hasleland. Most people seemed content to list those places on their family tree. How is that possible??? Surely someone else looked at this information and said, “wait a minute, where the heck are these places?” Maybe someone did ask that question, but their research had yet to make it into cyberspace. In any event, I was now determined to find out where Anna Elisabetha was born.
I began by looking for information about the Abegglen or Abecky surname. Turns out that almost everyone with that surname traces their roots to a particular area of Switzerland, specifically the towns of Iseltwald and Ringgenberg. These towns are in the mountains above Bern. “Perfect!” I thought. Oberland means highland. These towns are high above Bern. Seemed to make sense to me. Delighted with this information, I ordered the church records for Iseltwald and Ringgenberg to search for Anna Elisabetha’s birth. Unfortunately, there was no record of a birth in either location for Anna Elisabetha in 1697, and certainly not one with a father whose name was Kilian (if that was even his real name). The surname didn’t lead me to her birth place, so maybe the clues about the place could.
I searched google for Hasleland and Switzerland. When the results came up, I was off and running. I found a website in French that had an old drawing. I have no idea what the page said or what the title of the drawing was, but I recognized the word “Hasleland”. In the description about the drawing, again without having a clue about what the writing actually meant, I spotted the word “Haslital.” “Hasleland . . . Haslital . . . maybe these words are connected,” I thought. I returned to google and searched for Haslital.
A wikipedia page in English was the second result. I couldn’t believe my luck. I clicked on the link and started to read the article. “The Hasli region (also called Oberhasli, or Haslital “Hasli Valley”) . . . I didn’t even read any farther. Could “Oberland” in Canton Bern be synonymous with “Oberhasli” and “Haslital”?
During my second round of searching, I also found a resource that was newly posted online. On the GenWiki website (http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/Rieschweiler-M%C3%BChlbach/Zufallsfunde), there was a transcription of records from the “Schweizer in Rieschweiler” by Dahl, which familysearch recently posted on their website. The Abegglen family moved to the parish, which is where Anna Elizabetha married Melchior Baer. The record listed “Oberhasle” as the place that Anna Elisabetha was from. I knew I’d found it. The Hasli region was now the focus of my search. The source mentioned a sister of Anna Elisabetha named Christina.
Armed with this information, I ordered the church records for Meiringen, the church that served the entire Hasli region in 1697. When I looked at the film I found, on August 15, 1697, a baptism record for Anna Elisabetha Abegglen, daughter of Gilg Abegglen and Margareth Huber. I knew from previous experience that sometimes when Swiss names were recorded in German records the “G” is written as a “K” because of the way the “G” is pronounced in German. Different dialects – different spellings. Gilg, in my experience, is much more common that Kilian as a first name in German speaking regions. Because of this, I believe that Kilian was really Gilg or Gilgian, and that when the family moved to Germany the name was recorded phonetically as Kilian. But just to me sure, I searched the years before and after 1697 for other children of Gilg and Margareth. Turns out that they had a daughter named Christina in 1699. Just like the “Schweizer in Rieschweiler” record said. I was even more confident that I found the family’s Swiss origin.
It’s not often that I get to do research like this. Even if someone already found Anna Elisabetha’s baptism record, I hadn’t heard about it. It is rare that I truly blaze new research trails. There were so many researchers before me, compiling records and making connections. Virtually the only other time I’ve undertaken true original research is to trace my mother’s family in Poland. With my father’s family, my research goal is usually to get back far enough so that I am able to link up to research that someone else already completed. That was the case with the Baer family. Get back far enough to connect to the Baer family, then order the article by Ms. Best and cite to her research. It’s fun to find your family tree already mapped out for you, but there is something rewarding and uniquely exciting about seeing a baptism record you have been searching for appear before your eyes on microfilm. I’m not going to sit on this information. I’m going to share it, because in the end sharing results and discoveries is the most rewarding part of genealogical research. Already this information led me to possible connections with other published genealogies related to the Huber family. The journey continues. I only hope that this information will contribute, at least in some small way, to the understanding of not only my ancestors, but the ancestors of my distant cousins who share a connection with the Baer family.
The World of the Mess 