Parish Records of Mulhouse
I recently became aware that the City of Mulhouse, now in the Department of Haut-Rhin in France, was once a part of the Old Swiss Confederacy from 1515 until 1798. During this time, Mulhouse was known as the Stadtrepublik Mülhausen. It embraced the Reformed faith at the time of the Reformation.
Given that a number of my Swiss ancestors resided in Alsace before continuing on their journey to Colonial America, I was curious to see if I could study the parish registers of Mulhouse to see if I recognized any names therein which appear in my family tree.
There are two entries in the FamilySearch Catalog for the Reformed Churches in Mulhouse. The records go back to 1578. I would very much like to view these records. However, there is a bobbin symbol next to the entries meaning that the records can only be viewed on a microfilm reader at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/374314?availability=Family%20History%20Library
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/199054?availability=Family%20History%20Library
None of the earlier parish registers for Mulhouse have been digitized and uploaded to the Haut-Rhin Departmental Archives website for remote viewing.
How do you all recommend that I go about pursuing this matter? Is this even feasible?
There is a town called Mulhausen in the Department of Bas-Rhin whose parish records have been digitized and uploaded to the Bas-Rhine Departmental Archives website for remote viewing, but I know that town is a completely different entity.
Similarly, are there any other areas that were once part of the Old Swiss Confederacy that are not a part of present-day Switzerland, but belong to another country? I cannot seem to find any other places like Mulhouse, save for Rottweil, which is now in the German State of Baden-Württemberg. Rottweil was part of the Old Swiss Confederacy from 1519 to 1632.
I appreciate everyone’s advice and assistance. Thank you!
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I checked to see whether any earlier records from Mulhouse had been uploaded to the Haut-Rhin departmental archives website since your post, but they still don't have anything earlier than 1798, whereas I can see FamilySearch has records back through 1578. The back-end permissions for the Mulhouse records show they are indeed only viewable in the Family History Library (FHL). The FHL has a lookup service where you can request specific images, but it wouldn't work for something like browsing the collection for certain names, and the owner of these parish records prohibits sharing any images from this specific collection.
I can think of two options (other than traveling to the Haut-Rhin departmental archive):
- You could travel to the FHL if that's a feasible option for you, or send a friend with specific instructions as to which names to look for on the microfilms.
- You could email the Haut-Rhin archives at archives@haut-rhin.fr and ask whether/when they are planning to post the earlier records to the Haut-Rhin departmental archives website or whether you can somehow buy a digital copy of those earlier records. It's extremely unlikely--I found a note in the column of a 2018 article that said "Unfortunately, if you find a record to request, they will not respond"--but it never hurts to ask. Definitely write to them in French to up your chances of hearing back.
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Thank you for your helpful reply, Charlotte! I regret that I did not see it sooner.
A few thoughts occur to me...
I cannot travel to the FHL. Additionally, I do not know anyone in the SLC area either. While the staff there cannot share images from the collection, could they share information? I am looking to see if two relatively obscure surnames are in the collection. They are Mafli/Maffli and Juzeler/Jutzeler from Amsoldingen and Erlenbach, respectively, in the Canton of Bern. For example, could the staff check the collection and tell me that, and these are purely speculative names, that Paul Maffli and Catharina Schmidt had a son named Heinrich who was Baptised at the German Reformed Church in Mulhouse on 1 October 1721 without sending along the actual image?
I wrote to the Haut-Rhin Departmental Archives and they were helpful. Unfortunately, Mulhouse has its own municipal archives where the old parish registers are kept. To boot, Mulhouse, apparently, has no plans to participate in the Department's efforts to digitize the old parish registers. The civil records for Mulhouse are on the Departmental Archives website. I will now write to the Mulhouse archives directly.
Thanks, again!
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Hi, did you ever hear back from the municipal archives at Mulhouse? I also have ancestors from that area (though they were possibly from nearby Ilzach). I had been waiting for the Haut Rhin archives to finally finish "M" in their digitisation programme only to find now that Mulhouse is not going to be included (really frustrating!)
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@SMITHJOSEPH1 sorry for the extremely late reply! I happened across this thread again and saw your follow-up question.
You can access the FamilySearch Library records lookup service at https://www.familysearch.org/en/library/record-lookup-service Since they cannot share the images, they may or may not be able to send you a transcription instead; if you have a specific date of an event, t's worth a try, but the record lookup team doesn't provide research, so they won't browse the records to see whether the surnames show up somewhere without knowing what exact date they are looking for.
That said, I took a look at the Mulhouse/Mülhausen collection on FamilySearch for the surnames you asked about in your follow-up. Based on your hypothetical year, 1721, I looked at the baptismal indexes 1654-1775 and found no Maf(f)li, nor a Ju(t)zeler.
However, you mentioned that these ancestors who resided in Alsace were Swiss; do you know which town or parish they were from in Switzerland? Because of the way Swiss citizenship was handled (they held citizenship with a specific community/town first; see https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Switzerland_Naturalization_and_Citizenship), the locality a Swiss person was from was supposed to create records of all vital events in that person's life, even if the person had moved. Citizenship was passed down through the father, so even children born elsewhere would've held citizenship in the same locality and should've been recorded in their parish of citizenship.
The Register of Swiss Surnames (https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/famn/index.php) lets you search for a surname to see where people with that surname held citizenship. Alternatively, you can search for a community/town instead and see what surnames held citizenship there. This is what I found, leaving out the 1890s-1900s:
- Mafli held citizenship in Rebstein, St. Gallen
- Maffli held citizenship in Höfen, Bern
- Jutzeler held citizenship in Därstetten, Erlenbach im Simmental, and Wahlern, all in the canton of Bern
- surnames with citizenship in Amsoldingen: Bachmann, Bruni, Böhlen, Dubach, Glassner, Hirsig, Indermühle, Rudolf, Schneiter, Sulzer, Wenger
- surnames with citizenship in Erlenbach (im Simmental), Bern (there are other places called Erlenbach): Aegler, Andrist, Blum, Boss, Bühler, Bächler, Bähler, Flogerzi, Frick, Hadorn, Henggi, Holzer, Imobersteg, Jackowski, Johner, Joner, Jutzeler, Karlen, Kaufmann, Marmet, Minnig, Müller, Reber, Regez, Rohrbach, Schläppi, Sommer, Striffeler, Stryffeler, Stucki, Teuscher, Tritten, Tschabold, Türler, Ueltschi, Weibel, Weiss, Zenger, Zum Brunn, Zum Wald
Many Swiss records are online, though it does depend on the area. Church records from the canton of Bern are online (see https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Canton_Bern,_Switzerland_Genealogy#Church_Records).
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@Charlotte Noelle Champenois Thank you for your kind and thoughtful response! I sincerely appreciate your assistance with this matter and taking the time to investigate it on my behalf. Like myself, you keep a running list of unresolved genealogical queries, as well!
My Maffli ancestors were from Hofen in the Canton of Bern; Hofen is part of the parish of Amsoldingen. My Jutzler ancestors were from Erlenbach im Simmental in the Canton of Bern.
The parish registers of Amsoldingen begin in 1661; they are in a reasonably decent state of preservation. The parish registers of Erlenbach im Simmental begin in 1590; they are in better condition than the parish registers in Amsoldingen.
Thank you, again, for all of your kindness!
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