Sources for Switzerland

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Switzerland

Contents 1 Sources For Switzerland 2 Canton-specific resources 2.1 Space pages for canton-specific resources 2.2 Canton-specific resources that don't have a space page yet 3 Primary Sources 4 Secondary Sources 5 Space pages 6 Other projects about Swiss genealogy 7 Other helpful websites 7.1 General resources for information on Swiss genealogy 7.2 Specific resources 7.3 Getting help

Sources For Switzerland

This is a page to collect sources and useful resources for whole Switzerland. Please add any more you come across.

Canton-specific resources should be placed on a freespace page for that canton. Create these as needed.

Canton-specific resources

Space pages for canton-specific resources

• Sources for Canton of Bern, Switzerland
• Sources for Canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland
• Sources for Canton of Zürich, Switzerland

Canton-specific resources that don't have a space page yet

• Appenzell Ausserrhoden
• Basel-Landschaft
• Basel-Stadt
• Genf (Search in Adhémar for "Répertoires de l'état civil")
• Gazette de Lausanne (founded 1798) and Journal de Genève (founded 1826), free searchable archive of digitized copies. Tip: Download the pdf to enable text copy+paste for translation.
• Luzern with instructions (in German).
• Neuenburg (only for some "Gemeinden" or parishes)
• Schaffhausen Canton Record books available online
• Ticino (Tessin) some parishes avaiable on FamilySearch)
• Uri (not church records but the "Stammbuch" with family information)
• Waadt

Primary Sources

Church records (Kirchenbücher) Some cantons have put parish registers online and others have not. If your canton of interest has not put them online, the canton archives may be willing to do a lookup and send you an image. But most of church records for every canton and parish can viewed at your local Family Search Research Center Family Search Research Center with a free account and online for church members.

See canton-specific resources for church records that are available online.

• E-Newspaper Archives - online newspaper archives stretching back to the eighteenth century. Only few newspapers are already available, digitalisation is still going on.

Secondary Sources

• HLS - Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz. Thoroughly documented histories of locations, families, and individuals from around Switzerland. HLS is a company of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (Schweizerische Akademie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften).
• Register of Swiss Surnames, provided by the HLS
• Historisches Familienlexikon der Schweiz, a private family tree project, not related to the HLS

Space pages

• Billeter's Genealogical notes on families of Switzerland
• Guldin_Familienverzeichnis_in_St_Gallen_Church_Records

Other projects about Swiss genealogy

• Switzerland DNA Project at Family Tree DNA
• Alpine DNA AlpGen Project at Family Tree DNA

Other helpful websites

• Wikipedia entries for Switzerland and Cantons of Switzerland

General resources for information on Swiss genealogy

• Swiss Genealogy on the Internet
• FamilySearch's Wikipages entry for Switzerland and for every Canton in Switzerland
• FamilySearch's list of Switzerland Online Genealogy Records
• Schweiz - GenWiki (In German and French only)
• The Swiss Center of North America - Genealogy resources
• Switzerland on Cyndi's List

Specific resources

• German-English dictionary of genealogical terms.

Getting help

• Genealogy Forum
• RootsWeb Switzerland Message Boards