Switzerland Emigration and Immigration

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Switzerland

Emigration and Immigration

Online Resources

1348-1798 Switzerland, Basel City, Local Citizenship Requests, 1348-1798 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; images only
1458-1865 Apart from the world : an account of the origins and destinies of various Swiss Mennonites who fled from their homelands in remote parts of the Cantons Zürich, Aargau and Bern as well as Alsace, the Kurpf[alz, and later along the edges of the American frontier in Pennsylvania and Virginia; namely the families Bachman, Bär, Bruppacher, Hauser, Hiestand, Leaman, Ringger, Schmidt and Strickler, 1458-1865], e-book
16th-17th Century Einwandererkartei, 16.-17. Jahrhundert Alphabetical Index of Huguenots immigration from France, the Netherlands and Switzerland to the Pfalz (Palatinate), Germany.
1600-1900 Germany, Bayern, Pfalz, Schweizer Kartei : schweizer Einwanderer, meist in die Pfalz, ca. 1600-1900 Alphabetical card file of genealogical and biographical information about Swiss immigrants in Germany, mostly in the Palatinate, extracted from published sources and some church books.
1650-1800 Swiss emigrants to the Palatinate in Germany and to America, 1650-1800 and Huguenots to the Palatinate and Germany, e-books, 6 volumes.
1700s Lists of Swiss emigrants in the eighteenth century to the American colonies Vol. 1, e-book. Vol. 2, e-book
1704-1717 Swiss and German Mennonite immigrants from the Palatinate, 1704-1717, e-book
1709-1776 Emigrants, Refugees, and Prisoners: an Aid to Mennonite Family Research Item 15 on film. Vol. 1 contains chronological lists of Swiss Mennonite refugees from Cantons of Berne, Zürich and Aargau who came to the Netherlands, German Palatine and Holstein regions between 1648 and 1711; passenger lists of Mennonite emigrants to Pennsylvania colony between 1709-1776; and genealogies of Swiss Mennonite families covering the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.
1727-1776 A collection of upwards of thirty thousand names of German, Swiss, Dutch, French and other immigrants in Pennsylvania from 1727-1776 : with a statement of the names of ships, whence they sailed, and the date of their arrival at Philadelphia, chronologically arranged, together with the necessary historical and other notes, also, an appendix containing lists of more than one thousand German and French names in New York prior to 1712, e-book
1734-1752 A list of eighteenth-century emigrants from the Canton of Schaffhausen to the American colonies, 1734-1752
19th-20th centuries Monumental inscriptions relating to English speaking people in Switzerland, 19th-20th century, images
1814-1875 Passkontrolle, 1814-1875 Registry of Kt. Solothurn passport applicants travelling, studying or seeking employment outside of the canton or country. Includes date, occupation, place of residence, age, destination, period of time abroad, and physical characteristics.
1817-1866 Registres des émigrés, 1817-1866, (Alsace emigration index) Card index to emigration records of Europeans traveling through the Alsace region of France. This index also includes some Swiss emigrants.
1837-1857 Registres des passeports à l'étranger, 1837-1857 at FamilySearch Catalog; images only
1904-1914 Germany, Bremen Passenger Departure Lists, 1904-1914 at MyHeritage; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Switzerland
1946-1971 Free Access: Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971 Ancestry, free. Index and images. Passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports between 1946-1971. The majority of the immigrants listed in this collection are displaced persons - Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp inmates and Nazi forced laborers, as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries.
Switzerland, Schaffhausen Genealogies and City Directories - FamilySearch Historical Records
Historic background and annals of the Swiss and German pioneer settlers of southeastern Pennsylvania, and of their remote ancestors, from the middle of the Dark Ages, down to the time of the Revolutionary War : an authentic history from original sources ... with particular reference to the German-Swiss Mennonites or Anabaptists, the Amish and other nonresistant sects, e-book
L'Alsace et la Suisse à travers les siècles Alsace and Switzerland across the centuries, especially concerning immigration from Switzerland.

Offices and Archives to Contact

If the canton of origin of a pre-1848 emigrant is known, one can contact the appropriate State Archive for further information. To obtain information concerning emigrants who left after 1848, contact:

Schweizer Bundesregierung
Bundeshaus
CH-3000 Bern, Switzerland

Finding the Town of Origin in Switzerland

If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Switzerland, see Switzerland Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

The Register of Swiss Surnames

Switzerland has one unique feature that can speed up your search for your ancestor's town. Citizenship was held by specific town. The Register of Swiss Surnames is an online tool, based on the reference book, Familiennamenbuch der Schweiz, which lists for every surname the towns where that family held citizenship. It also gives data on the time period the family arrived there and the former town they migrated from. It can, however, give many localities for one surname, so you may still need to look for records that help you narrow down the list. After a thorough search in U.S. records, if you still haven't proven your town, you can begin looking in the records of each town for your surname. However, especially if your searches will involve correspondence or hiring a researcher, it is best to exhaust all U.S. record possibilities before trying that method. Here are the Instructions for using the register.

Also, watch the Online Class: Names and Places: The Register of Swiss Surnames