Until 1800, the different Amsler families were mainly based in the canton of Aargau. The Amsler in Richterswil are an exception. The following article is about this line, combined with a call for participation in the Amsler DNA family project.
Their origin lies in Balm, near Kempten in the Zurich Oberland. In 1818 Johannes Amsler (1776-1832) bought a house in Richterswil, he lived on the Burghalden. This and much more we know thanks to a little-known publication based on the research of Roger Amsler (1940-2008).
A letter from 1996
Roger Amsler’s research began in 1993 and continued for more than a decade. In a letter from 1996, he sent an appeal to numerous Amsler families around the world. He had taken the addresses from a publication of “Halbert’s Family Heritage”.
The pseudo genealogical treatise contains a chapter entitled “The Amsler International Registry”. The introduction states that the list was compiled “after searching 220 million records” and consists of 1,187 Amsler addresses in 15 countries. Publications of this kind also exist for other surnames but are of little practical use.
In the letter he introduced himself and his project. Roger was born in Switzerland, but had been living in Inman, South Carolina for 30 years. He asked for help with his genealogical research. Roger is said to have received a surprisingly large number of responses.
The work of Roger Amsler
Roger Amsler’s extensive work was published at the beginning of 2006 and titled “Amsler Family of the Richterswil Line”. I learned about it two years ago and found a copy of the work in the Zentrabiliothek Zurich.
In the meantime, I was able to contact descendants of Roger. From them I received a copy of the 300-page book. There is also a digital copy of the work as a PDF file. Please address any inquiries in this regard to the author of this article.
The book documents 15 generations of the family, supplemented with many photos. Around 800 people are listed in the name index, around 300 of whom are Amsler. There is also a table of descendants listing the various lines. Each name has a reference number which point to the main part of the book, the explanation of the 15 generations.
For each generation there is a chapter, sometimes with very detailed descriptions of the people. These go far beyond the dry dates of birth, marriage and death. Entire biographies, house histories, episodes and anecdotes enrich the family history.
The Amsler lines in Switzerland
An earlier article Amsler in Switzerland deals with the distribution of the Amsler lines in Switzerland. A line is defined by the place of origin or hometown. The Swiss family name book contains the hometown of every Swiss citizen. The hometown is probably the most important concept in family research here. The search for genealogical traces begins with the place of origin.
If we restrict ourselves to the period before 1800, we find Amsler hometowns in seven municipalities. Five of these are in the canton Aargau, one in the canton Baselland and one in canton Zurich. The Amsler’s from Bözen and Effingen belong to the same family. The Amsler from Buus, Canton Baselland, came from Bözen in nearby Aargau.
With the help of genetic genealogy and analysis of Y-DNA, it has been proven that the Amslers from five out of seven hometowns descended from a common ancestor, see Amsler Y-DNA family project.
| Hometown | Ct. | Comments | MRCA |
| Bözen | AG | Same parish as Effingen | yes |
| Densbüren | AG | Relations with Schinznach ~ 1600 | yes |
| Effingen | AG | Same parish as Bözen | yes |
| Kaisten | AG | Near Bözen and Densbüren | open |
| Schinznach | AG | Relations with Densbüren ~ 1600 | yes |
| Buus | BL | Place of origin is Bözen | yes |
| Richterswil | ZH | Unknown relation with Ct. Aargau | open |
The Amsler’s in Kaisten only appear there in the 17th century. They may have come from the nearby Bernese Aargau. However, there are reasons that speak against this theory. Although Bözen is only around 10 km away from Kaisten, there were not only national borders between the two villages, but also religious borders. Kaisten belonged to Catholic Austria until 1803 and Bözen was in the protestant territory of Bern. Analysis of the Y-DNA of Amsler descendants in Kaisten could clarify these circumstances.
This leads us to the Amsler line of Richterswil, which is documented in Kempten from around 1600. There is no evidence that the Amslers found their way from Bernese Aargau to the Zurich Oberland. Here, too, Y-DNA seems to be the only way to clarify the question of the origin of the Amslers of Richterswil.
Of course, there are more important questions than clarifying family relationships that go back 500 years. But the aim of any genealogical research is to find out more about our ancestors. I therefore very much hope to find male Amsler descendants from Kaisten and Richterswil willing to have their Y-DNA analyzed. In doing so, they will support this research work.
