This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Busch, Giger, Sonderer Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/hg.2ADI/617 Message Board Post: I found this while researching cases. I have no relation to or have further information regarding the following. Giger v. Busch, 122 Ill.App. 13 (Ill.App., 1905) Jacob Busch was a native of the Canton of St. Galls, Switzerland. He came to the United States in 1854 and settled in Mercer county, Illinois, in 1860, where he lived until his death, which occurred April 10, 1902. He had a wife who survives him, but had no children. His heirs are his nephews and nieces and the children of deceased nephews and nieces, all of whom, except one, reside in Switzerland in or near the Canton of St. Galls. The parents of Joseph Busch resided all their lives in Switzerland and died there, his father in 1851 and his mother in 1857. None of the family had ever resided in the German Empire at any time within the recollection of the oldest survivors, except Freida Giger, the appellant herein, of whom the following account is given: Freida Giger is a daughter of Joseph Giger; Joseph was a nephew of Joseph Busch. Freida was born in 1892 and was the youngest child of a large family. She and a brother two years older than herself, were placed in an orphans asylum in the Canton of St. Galls in 1894. In 1896 Mr. Sonderer, a citizen of Freudenstadt, Wurtemberg, Germany, by consent and arrangement with the superintendent of the poor, took the child Freida to his home in Germany to rear her in his family. He kept her until August, 1897, when Mr. Sonderer, having decided to emigrate to the United States, left the child with Gottfried O. Nauhardt, a citizen of Leipsic, Germany, who took her into his family as his foster child, where she was at the date of the making the will and the death of Joseph Busch. Freida Giger has a guardian who resides in the Canton of St. Galls. In 1895 and again in 1898, Joseph Busch visited his relatives in Switzerland and on each occasion he made a present of 100 francs to each of his relatives; the shares of Freida and others under age were left for them with a custodian in Switzerland. While on the return from his last visit, Joseph Busch expressed his intention of making a will and giving everything to his wife and at her death he wanted all sent to his relatives to be equally divided among them. This conversation was had with Mr. Looser, who is also a native of Switzerland and came to the United States at the same time Busch came. He is one of the executors of the will appointed by Busch. Mr. Looser also testifies that he visited Joseph Busch in his last illness, and that the deceased told him he had made a will and handed the will to Looser to read. Mr. Looser called his attention to the use of the words "in Germany," and told him he should correct that and say "in Switzerland," to which he replied, "It is n! o difference, it is all Deutschland, it is all the same." *2 It is also shown that while the Canton of St. Galls is within the territorial limits of Switzerland, it is settled by people who speak the German language and that German habits and customs prevail there.