Jill Conrad: New member introducing myself

Question

I'm currently researching my Conrad family and have hit a dead-end with Hans Conrad (Kunrad) of Attiswil, Canton Bern, Switzerland, born 1719. It's possible he had a brother named Rudolf/Rutolf. Both emigrated to Montbeliard, France and were Amish Mennonites.

Comments

Hi, Jill -- I added a couple more tags to your post to get the attention of the members of the Switzerland and France projects. They may be able to help you locate the records you need.

Best of luck!

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Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi Jill,

Welcome to WT.

I hope you will find what you are searching for.

I am from The Netherlands so not able to help you at Switzerland or France. Just hoping you will get some help there.

Kind regards and have fun at WT,

A.

Answer 2

Hi Jill and welcome to WikiTree. Thank you for introducing yourself in our g2g forum.  As you already know, this is the spot you come to to also ask questions about your ancestors and/or any other questions you come up with about WikiTree. We have a host of wonderful genealogists who are always available to help you if you get stuck doing something.

My suggestion on your next move would be to upgrade to a family membership (this is 100% free). You would then be able to add a tag - (Tags connect with other genealogists who share the same interests) These would be surnames of your ancestors and/or locations where they might have lived. You could immediately be connected with other members who are researching the same names you are. What an awesome idea - Right?

Anyway, welcome to WikiTree, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Answer 3

I do not know much about Mennonites, but I think the marriage records of both Hans and Rudolf Kunradt are here: Montbéliard, culte mennonite, BMS 1750-1793, Archives municipales de Montbéliard, cote GG39, image 15/30 (3rd and 4th records). Hans with Margarethe Richen on 5 Apr 1750, and Rudolf with Fiona(?) Linder on 6 Jan 1751.

Note that at that time, Montbéliard was not in France, but in the Principality of Montbéliard, part of the Holy Roman Empire, so with the Wikitree rule of using their language, the place should be something like: Mömpelgard, gefürstete Grafschaft Mömpelgard, Heilige Römische Reich.

Comments

Yes, Hans is my 5x great grandfather and the marriage date matches my records. Thank you for this. I have a copy of the Montebeliard Mennonite Church Register that has been translated, but none of the original record images.

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Hi Jill/Julien,

If it helps, I think her name reads 'Frena' which would be a common German short form for Verena.

Answer 4

Hello! You're probably related to my husband far back in time - his father's side was Amish Mennonite from Switzerland/Alsace-Lorraine (then Ontario and Iowa) and some were from the Montbeliard area. I haven't done much research on his line but he does descend from [[Roth-1290|Jakob Roth]] who was born in Montbeliard.

Comments

Yes, I am certain we are related. Roths and Reschlys are also in my family tree. And I have family that lived in Ontario Iowa, Nebraska, and Oregon on this side of my family.

Answer 5

Hi Jill, Have you set up a profile for Hans Conrad yet? It would also be useful to know what resources you have searched so far. I am pretty sure that most of the older church registers of the canton of Bern are freely available online. My expertise is the canton St. Gallen but I more than happy to assist if I can.

Comments

Here is the website of the State Archive Berne with nearly all churchbooks online (there are about 3-4 parishes still not digitised).
https://www.sta.be.ch/sta/de/index/staatsarchiv/staatsarchiv/genealogie.html (German)
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.sta.be.ch/sta/de/index/staatsarchiv/staatsarchiv/genealogie.html (Google translated)

Church books in Canton Berne start in 16th century and the books owned by the State Archive go up to 1875, when civil registry office was introduced.
The digitised church books are not digitally indexed (or maybe they are in Family Search), so you would need to look through the books and their original indexes.
Sadly, the handwriting is hard to read, as the digital copies were made from the microfilms which had bad quality.