We started the day with a visit to Bassersdorf's Gemeindehaus (community offices) where the clerk was eager to help. She had some books about the town, so we bought two. But she couldn't find any info on Ruth's names.
Next we toured Baltenswil, where it took us about 5 minutes to walk through the town and back without meeting a soul. We found a man in Ralph's Bike Shop who didn't have any info, but said Baltenswil is part of Bassersdorf, so we should check there.
Next was Volketswil. The Gemeindehaus was closed but we found a friendly lady at a Lutheran office building who had lived a year in San Diego. She checked church records and called a parishoner with the last name of Wintsch. The parishoner didn't have genealogy info but said she would check with her father-in-law. Later today Ruth got an email from the church worker who said that she had searched church records going back to 1840 and didn't find any names to help us.
Then we poked around the village at Ober-Illnau (Upper-Illnau) finding lots of possible relatives in the cemetery, but they only dated back to 1989. HansJorg told us yesterday that cemeteries only kept bodies for 25 years, after which the plot was recycled and re-sold because of a shortage of space.
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| Ober-Illnau Cemetery |
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| Ober-Illnau Well Dating to 1800 |
Finally, we went with much fear and trepidation to Zurich. Driving in Zurich really is difficult, but we managed to find the Gemeindeamt (city offices) and nearby parking, only to find that it had moved across town. Not wanting to waste the hour of parking we had paid for, we went for a stroll. In that hour we didn't find any chocolate shops, so we got a bite at a McDonalds, with prices about double what we are used to. After driving across town we again found parking and the Gemeindeamt (thank goodness for GPS.)
The friendly lady in the Gemeindeamt couldn't speak English but she could speak French. So Jeff finally found a use for his mission language here. She informed us that the man who could authorize our access to the records was only there in the mornings, so we made an appointment to see him tomorrow at 9 am. Also, he will want proof that these are Ruth's ancestors. That will be difficult, but we will bring our tiny laptop computer with Roots Magic charts showing the connections, and Ruth's passport. If he gives us internet access, she can also show details on Ancestry.com. If he accepts that, he will give us a form that we can take to the villages authorizing them to show us their old books. A rather complex system, the Swiss have, but we'll see tomorrow.
Again, we had paid for two hours of parking in Zurich and wanted to get our money's worth, so we bought some Apple Strudel at a bakery and walked around town for an hour. We found a nice river and park and some churches, but mostly the Zurich we saw looks like a big American city. Except the traffic and traffic patterns are terrible. Almost as bad as Boston.
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