switzerland

switzerland constitutes one of the core areas of our office’s research activity and this includes not only the german-speaking part of switzerland, but also its french-speaking western region and the italian-speaking southern switzerland.

particular prominence needs to be paid to the institution of the citizen's place (bürgerort) and the associated civil rights that come with this attachment to a local place. the local administration registers a citizen’s primary data in its civil registry office, no matter where a life cycle event happened. since 1929 there are also so called family registers which provide information about parents and their children. to begin with all living persons were documented in this manner so that families were included with parents being already 80 years and even older.

these two special nationwide swiss features are helpful tools, especially since many regions have maintained family-oriented citizen registers from much earlier onwards (e.g. aargau and zurich).

nevertheless the situation varies significantly, depending on denomination and region. just like in germany we find that catholic church books begin with recordings later than in protestant or protestant reformed areas. however swiss church books provide generally less information than in many other countries like germany, italy and france. additional sources are often required.