Living family members of Samuel Baumgartner

Question

I’m looking for living family members that are still living in Switzerland. Back in 1982 a family member came to the United State’s and brought over a family tree. I would love to connect with living family members to add to our tree.

My 4th great-grandfather Samuel Baumgartner, Birth 22 November 1807 in Rapperswil, Bern, Switzerland Death 07-April 1892 Waukesha Wisconsin USA. He married Magdalena Schori Birth 2 November 1812 Death 1894. She was also from Rapperswil, Bern, Switzerland.

From stories I remember Samuel came to the USA with a couple of his children and left Magdalena in Switzerland with a couple of children. I believe some of the children were.

• Magdalena born 1835
• Nicklaus born 1841
• John born 1843
• Jacob born 1845
• Bendicht born 1848
• Friedrich born 1851

They were all born in Rapperswil, Bern, Switzerland. I don’t know what children stayed in Switzerland and what one came to the USA

This is my grandma’s side of the family

Answer 1

As a start you could have a look at the church records of the Canton Bern which are available digitally up until 1875 at the State Archives (announcement). Rapperswil can be found at https://www.query.sta.be.ch/detail.aspx?ID=220197 (Google Translate). Use first "To entry at a lower level" and then "To the next entry in the archive plan" on the left to cycle through the entries. What will make it a bit difficult is

• that records are only availble up to 1875
• you will have to read old German handwriting

At least the names are in Latin script so it is a bit easier to get to the interesting entries.

Also a casual search for "Baumgartner" in Rapperswil yielded some results, but those not necessarily need to be related to you. I also found an old address book (Google Translate) of the Canton Bern from 1836 which might help you.