A new challenge - mid-European research.

[marquette]

A friend has just made me the manager of his DNA results, so we can look into his family tree.

It's going to be a real challenge - I have never had to research in Europe before, and he has very few large DNA matches.

Its early days, but 3 weeks after posting, he only has 132 close matches, the highest shared cM being just 52. In total he has 5670 matches and no common ancestors yet, as I am very challenged in building his family tree.

The highest match assigned paternal is just 18cM and maternal is 32. All the higher matches are unassigned at the moment.

Although he was born in Australia, his parents were born in Switzerland or Germany and came here after they married. He says his mothers family is Italian, but this is not really borne out by his ethnicity.

His ethnicity came back as 47% Germanic European, 31% England/NW Europe, 10% Italian, 7% French and 5% Sweden/Denmark.

I have made a little progress on his dad's family - I was able to find his fathers and uncles baptisms on familysearch, but slowed to a stop a great-grandparent level, when every second man seemed to be called Jos Anton.

If anyone knows anything about German/Swiss or even Italian research, please feel free to suggest ideas.

[kiterunner]

There are a lot of German records on Ancestry, and also on www.archion.de which is another pay site but most records on there are not indexed, so you have to know which town or parish you need for that site to be any use. There are some Swiss records on FamilySearch but you may need to go to a FamilySearch centre or affiliated library to be able to view the images for those.

[Mary from Italy]

I can help with Italian research, but you need to know the places where events happened.

[Mary from Italy]

His ethnicity came back as 47% Germanic European, 31% England/NW Europe, 10% Italian, 7% French and 5% Sweden/Denmark.


Is that on Ancestry? They seem to assign a lot of French ancestry to northern Italians in my limited experience, presumably because the DNA is similar.

[Mary from Italy]

You could try uploading the results to MyHeritage out of interest; they calculate ethnicity differently from Ancestry. But I don't know how accurate either of them are, especially at fairly low percentages.

You should get some more matches on there, too.

[marquette]

Thanks for the replies.

Looking at the England/NW Europe, it seems to run down through northern and eastern France and the Low Countries, down through part of Germany into North Switzerland, so it might not mean much at all. France means central and southern France.

He's going to see if his birth certificate has any more information - I have to say he has cut ties with his parents and has not had any contact with them for several years. So asking them for information is not a possibility at this point.

From familysearch it appears his paternal (Ruegg) lines are from St Gallen and possibly mothers paternal side (Ita) is from around Zurich. I got back 3 generations on his fathers family, but there are way too many Jos Anton Rueggs to progress further without some other clues.

I will talk to him about uploading to My Heritage and maybe GEDmatch. Still, its early days and taken me years to sort out my own DNA matches.

[marquette]

Is that on Ancestry? They seem to assign a lot of French ancestry to northern Italians in my limited experience, presumably because the DNA is similar.

Yes from Ancestry. But if his mother was "Italian" (but born in Switzerland) as she claimed or even half Italian, I would have thought the percentage was higher. Even French and Italian combined is a low estimate for him to be a quarter Italian.

[Qwackers]

Hi , I had my DNA done through My heritage , and found my closest match , was indeed a relation . I was amazed . as i always scoffed at the tests , I had to work through some ancestors lists but got there in the end . So dont be put off .

[kiterunner]

There are a lot of Catholic parish registers on a free site called Matricula Icarus:

https://www.icar-us.eu/en/cooperation/online-portals/matricula/

[Mary from Italy]

Part of Switzerland is Italian-speaking, as you probably know.

Are there any Italian-sounding names in the family?

I suppose you've looked at online trees?

Have a look at those on MyHeritage and Geneanet as well as Ancestry if you haven't done already; they're sometimes better for non-English-speaking countries.

FamilySearch is also worth a try.

[Mary from Italy]

I suppose you've already seen this?

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Sankt_Gallen,_Sankt_Gallen,_Switzerland_Genealogy

[marquette]

Part of Switzerland is Italian-speaking, as you probably know.

Are there any Italian-sounding names in the family?

I suppose you've looked at online trees?

Have a look at those on MyHeritage and Geneanet as well as Ancestry if you haven't done already; they're sometimes better for non-English-speaking countries.

FamilySearch is also worth a try.

Thank you, ladies for the links, I will look at them.

I have yet to look further afield than Ancestry, but there does not seem to any family trees there.

familysearch is not showing any Swiss or Italian "Dolo" surnames, mostly Brazil or South America and Spain. I am wondering if he has the spelling slightly wrong, but will keep looking.

[Mary from Italy]

This Italian site shows the distribution of surnames over the country:

https://www.cognomix.it/mappe-dei-cognomi-italiani/DOLO

I think it must be based on the current phone book, because my non-Italian surname is showing for the area where I live, but it at least gives you a clue where they might be from.

Northern Italian regions most likely for Dolo, as you'll see.

[Mary from Italy]

Some Dolo trees on MyH, and a couple of entries for Dolo in the Swiss phone book:

https://tel.search.ch/?was=Dolo

There are even a few in the Australian electoral rolls, I see (you never know, some of his mother's family may also have emigrated).

[Mary from Italy]

Your friend's Australian birth certificate is going to be the key to going further, because it should show his parents' ages and birthplaces.

[marquette]

Thank you, Mary.

Seems like there's plenty to look at and lots of clues, if I can just get a few more details to focus on an area or region.

We may be looking at events that are too recent and are still bound by privacy laws. Even our Australian states vary greatly in end-dates for access to marriages and deaths records.

[Mary from Italy]

I know, that's a nuisance.

[marquette]

Just a progress report - I have been able to connect one of the DNA matches to my friend's family! Its a very small match (10cM), but a large tree helped find the Common Ancestor!

The very helpful familysearch records of the Swiss Catholic and Reformed Church go all the way up to 1996. They also list parents' names on marriage records. With this information I am pretty sure I have my friend's paternal lines back to his 5th great grandparents.

Also I have been able to sort out his paternal grandmother's maternal line - no father is listed on her marriage record, so I don't know if she was illegit. (her mother is listed with the same surname) or if he was deceased.

The big hole is my friend's mothers side. I found his fathers and uncles baptism records from the 1950s and 1960s and their parents marriage, but not a thing for his mother or her parents.

I am beginning to think that the name she is known by is not the one given at birth.

The only two records I found for her are in Australia - a current business registration and an immigration/citizenship record at the National Archives. I have requested access to the NAA record, but don't know whether it will be successful as its from 1984. Oddly, there are no immigration records for her husband, even though her record is in her married name.

I am surprised at how quickly this has come together but I think that was the "easy" bit.

The NAA are saying they will advise within 90 days, so I will have to be patient for the next few months, and then it may not have anything useful.

[Mary from Italy]

Did you get to see your friend's birth certificate eventually?

[marquette]

Did you get to see your friend's birth certificate eventually?
No not yet, he forgot last time we got together. I dont like to nag too much!

[Mary from Italy]

How annoying, you really need that!

[marquette]

So, I now have the birth certificate -- it says his mother was born in Pfaffikon, Switzerland and his father in Mona Vale NSW. Well, that's not right - father was born in Schmerikon, St Gallen, Switzerland - I don't know where the error occurred, or if its worth getting it fixed.

Anyhow, it was no help in finding mothers parents. Still waiting for the NAA document, though I am really doubtful there will be any clues to her parents.

[Mary from Italy]

One of the Dolos I found in the Swiss phone book, as mentioned upthread, is in Uster, only 7 km from Pfäffikon...

[marquette]

Thanks Mary, I cannot find very much about them at all.

I tried working on trees for some DNA matches, particularly the largest ones with trees.

I took his largest maternal match and their shared matches and made a list of the surnames (that are Swiss/Germanic/Italian?) in the 6 biggest trees - none of them have any in common. Now I am trying to build trees for them.

I think I will feel like a forensic genealogist if I can work anything out!

[Mary from Italy]

You could try asking in the Swiss section of the Filiae forums if anyone has access to birth or baptism records for Pfäffikon:

https://www.filae.com/v4/forums/recherches-genealogiques-suisse-f18.html

It might even be worth contacting the guy in Uster; he has an Italian forename, and could well be related to your lot. Even if he isn't closely related, or doesn't know, it might be useful to ask whereabouts in Italy his ancestors came from.

[marquette]

Thanks Mary for the suggestions.

I have now received the file on Carmen (mother of my friend) and her migration journey to become a permanent resident and then Australian citizen. Being so recent (1985), I did wonder if they would release it, due to our privacy restrictions, so I am a bit surprised.

Its 232 pages, some of them duplicates of forms, for varying purposes.

I know a lot more about Mum and her husband, who came to Australia separately (having known each other in Switzerland) and they married on the Gold Coast. Both their dates and places of birth, as well as those of her parents are given.

One form lists her employment and residential addresses in Switzerland - in 1983 apparently she lived in Uster, so maybe the man in phone book there, is not so far off the track!

However, there are no records for any of them in familysearch. At this point I am thinking they did not get baptised or married in the Catholic and Reformed Church or the Pfaffikon records are not included.

Off to read through some more of the 232 pages!

[kiterunner]

FamilySearch's catalogue shows they have Pfaffikon church records for 1597-1875:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/369382?availability=Family%20History%20Library

[Mary from Italy]

Where were her parents born?

[marquette]

Where were her parents born?

Father born in Switzerland, mother in Italy. I thought there might be a bit more detail but I have not found it yet.

I deduce from her addresses that her parents still lived in Wiesslingen, Zurich when she came to Australia. We think her mother died in 2009.

[Mary from Italy]

Another Dolo from Uster here:

https://services.datasport.com/2009/lauf/greifenseelauf/regionch_zh.htm