Schwab Family, Siselen, Switzerland

I gave my Schwab line only brief mention in my introductory post, so I want to get back to them.  I confess that I have not given this line as much attention because it was so easy to achieve my initial goal of tracing this line back to Europe.  After all, my great-grandfather, Alexander Schwab, and his siblings were all born in Siselen, Switzerland.  Alex was born May 31, 1871.  My great-great-grandfather, John Jacob Schwab was born in Siselen in 1843 and his wife, Maria Schwab (no relation) was born there in 1838.  He emigrated in 1880 and stayed for a while with one of his brothers, John Frederick, who had come to the US in the 1870s and was living in Pennsylvania. In 1882, my great- grandfather Alex immigrated with a group from Siselen going to Germania, PA.  He and his brother, Fred, took a ship from Le Havre, France.  In 1883, the rest of John Jacob’s family came, staying in Renova, PA.  In 1888, they moved to Cameron, PA.

One generation further gets much more difficult without polishing up my German and is complicated by the fact that looking for John (or Johann) Schwab in Siselen is a little like looking for John Smith in the US.  The family kept good records, so I’m reasonably confident in the information they had stating that my great-great-great grandparents were John Benedict Schwab, born 1808, died 1875 and Elizabeth (possibly maiden name Schwab, but family records aren’t clear on this) from Siselen.  He was Der Salzmann, the government’s salt distributor, for his district and he ran a tavern. The family records offer no further details of the family prior to John Benedict.

I often wonder what drove the family’s decision to leave Switzerland.  About the time my great-great grandfather John Jacob was born, Switzerland adopted a federal constitution and the country was well on its way to becoming the prosperous country it is today.  On the other hand, what I found at swissworld.org pinpoints the timeframe and suggests a possible reason:           

Population growth and famine were two important factors which forced hundreds of thousands of Swiss to emigrate during the 19th century. In particular there were waves of emigration in 1816-7, 1845-55 and 1880-85.

As a result of new farming methods, fields were fenced off as private plots, where previously everyone in the community had been able to graze their animals on common land.  The arrival of the railways in the middle of the century meant that grain could be imported cheaply. As a result, farmers switched to more lucrative and less labour-intensive areas, like dairy farming. Thousands of landless labourers were forced to look for employment elsewhere, and migrated to the towns and their factories - or emigrated, often to America.

I know I’ll need to buckle down and work on Swiss sources at some point, but, uh, not today.  I have a sudden urge for some chocolate.

Swiss Family Schwab

So when did the genealogical research seed get planted?  It goes back to 1975.  I was in Venice, Italy on a semester abroad program and took a weekend trip Switzerland.  As part of that trip I wanted to stop in Siselen, near Berne.  I am one-eighth Swiss and knew my great-great grandparents, John and Mary Schwab, had emigrated from Siselen with their family in the late 1800s.  I went, not knowing much more than a few names of dead relatives.  Siselen is a small town and it took no time to locate the main cemetery.  I was startled to walk among the headstones and see so many with the last name Schwab and with such old dates.  Even at the time, I wished I had done more research so perhaps I would have been able to identify the graves of relatives—and, who knows, even meet a distant cousin.

The following year I asked my grandmother to record our genealogy for me.  And later I received notebooks of historical remembrances she wrote down for the family and for the Cameron County Historical Society.  I don’t know if she ever gave her notes to the Historical Society, but I do know I was grateful I had made the request.  That was the year my grandmother died.  Little did I know it would take me almost 35 years to follow-through.

The first phase of this blog will be my grandparents’ remembrances of Cameron County, Pennsylvania, where they spent most of their lives.  Much of it will be information the Historical Society, long-time residents and anyone who enjoys first person history would appreciate.  I will be transcribing their comments, grammar and all, with editing done only when absolutely necessary. 

After that, I’ll begin telling the stories of my research on specific family lines.  My goal when I started a year ago was to trace each line back to Europe.  If I complete that task, who knows, maybe I’ll make a trip back to Siselen with a little more knowledge.