Finding My Swiss Family

Fountain in Lengnau with village emblem of the horse

Where we left off last August, I was quite convinced I had found the names of my great grandfather and his father and his brother in the census records in the Gemeindehaus (community center) at Bad Zurzach, and visited Lengnau the village of their birth. And now, six months later, for the “Rest of the Story.”  In February I spent an afternoon in the Canton Aargau Staatsarchiv, scanning spools of microfilm and delicately handling fragile old immigration documents searching for the name Köferli.  I hoped to learn when my great-grandfather emigrated to America, and why.  The staff at the Staatsarchiv was most accommodating, telling me they often had visitors searching for family records. With their help, I was able to find a census record of Jakob Leonz Köfferlin, born in 1757, six generations from me.  I searched the immigration records from 1853 to 1870, which gave numbers of people who left for North America, but no names.

Lengnau, with Dorfmuseum and tower of St Martin's church

 

 Beginning to lose hope, I revisited Lengnau and this time gave my name and my daughter’s Swiss phone number to the Gemeindehaus staff, asking them to contact any remaining Köferli folks in the village to see if they would be willing to meet me.  Just before leaving the village, I stopped in at the bank and mentioned to the young lady at the teller window that I was in Lengnau searching for family, and she told me my Swiss name was one of the founding families of the village!  She told me some of the other family names: Bucher, Schmid, Angst, Müller, Suter, names which I had seen over and over in the Staatsarchiv records.  There was a book about the village, written by Hans Schmid, which I purchased, with old photos and stories of the families.  I later met Herr Schmid who gave me copies of the “Wappen” (coat of arms) for the founding families, including mine, and told me the name originated as Küfer, meaning a coppersmith, such as “Cooper” in English. He said one of his cousins is a Köferli, and I began to suspect the founding families were all inter-related.

The Surb, which flows into the Aare, which flows into the Rhein River

The following week, we got a phone call from Theresa Köferli-Suter, who arranged an afternoon meeting with us (my daughter and son-in-law) to include two other cousins, Helen and Josephina.  What a joy to meet my long-lost relatives, and they were simply delightful; we were all amazed at finding each other, pointing out family resemblances with much laughter, lots of German and English translations of the conversations and stories.  They presented me with a booklet “Köferli von Lengnau, Familie Genealogie.”  This booklet described our family in Lengnau as dating back to 1470, and the earliest name was one Hans Köfferlin von Lengnau born in 1550!  I gave them a copy of the Kaferly genealogy I had drawn up for the American side, and we pinpointed where the families diverged. They told me my great-great grandfather emigrated with his wife and four children in 1851, and they left probably because of bad economic times.  They showed me photos of their fathers, and their businesses in Lengnau, and told me about the Köferli Family reunion to take place in June that I simply must attend! And indeed, I have my tickets already…

The Köferli Metzgerai (third generation butcher shop) in Döttingen

The following week I meet with my Köferli family for lunch, and since it was the day after my birthday, they sang Happy Birthday to me in English, German, French, and Italian.  True multi-lingual Swiss.  After lunch, which they wouldn’t dream of letting me pay for, Helen and her husband Felix drove me around the valley of the Surb River to visit the tiny farming communities surrounding Lengnau and showed me where she and Josephina had lived as children.  It was a hazy winter day, with the chilly mist settled on the fields and the afternoon sun glowing on the hoarfrost on the tree branches in the hills above us.  What a perfectly peaceful rural scene, barns, grain silos, farmhouses, horses and cattle, and the friendly residents walking their dogs. I felt as though I had always been part of this land, and had known these lovely people all my life.

A winter walk in the Surb River valley

I can hardly believe it: from knowing almost nothing of my father’s family a year ago, I now have the Köferli Family history and genealogy that stretches back 15 generations. And the best part is I have met and fallen in love with my Swiss Family Köferli and plan to see them often in the future!