> Von: MKunzle311@aol.com[SMTP:MKunzle311@aol.com] > Gesendet: Mittwoch, 2. Februar 2000 19:14 > An: SWITZERLAND-L@rootsweb.com > Betreff: Re: [SWITZ] Familenschein fees (was: Some Advice Please) > > I come back to your comments you had about familienschein an fees. > I have recently asked at about 10 differents places mainly in the canton > of > AR and SG to send me a familienschein. Up to now I got 7 responses. And > nobody > had asked me to get a permission from the canton. > > 1. for 1 familienschein I paid FS 92.- As they told me they have applied > the > new tarif. I suppose as Wolf told in his mail they included the permission > > fees. > Would be plausible : the cantonal fee is FS 50 - leaving FS 42 for the Familienschein - deduct a small amount for postage and the like, and you are in the range of usual fees. > 2. for another familienschein I paid FS 55.-. A bit expensive but after my > > experience correct. > Will certainly not include the cantonal permission (I understand that 1 and 2 are for different communities). Lucky you ;-) ! How many children were included ? I haven't got the exact tarif here just now - but it will be something like - basic fee FS 15 - postage and the like FS 4 - leaves FS 36 for per capita fees - FS 2 per person - makes it 18 people - incl. the 2 parents and 4 grandparents - would be 12 children - or 11 children from 2 wifes > 3. A photocopy of a burgerrodel I got free of charge. > This (pre 1876) is not governed by Zivilstandsverordnung. Some administrations will charge a small amount for photocopying and postage - with an overhead (bank fees) higher than the charge itself; others apply common sense ;-). > 4. 1 reply per e-mail from the Staatsarchiv to whom the letter was > forwarded, > telling me they find anything, but giving further clues where I should > search. > No permission needed for Staatsarchiv - and Markus Kaiser (likely the one who answered, if SG) is a very nice and helpful guy ;-). > 5. From two places I got the reply per e-mail that they do not have any > records for the period I asked. > At least for St.Gallen it's the official policy not to require a permission for this preliminary question : makes sense - why ask for paper work and fees, only to find out there is nothing around. Even if they have records for the time, they may not have info on your ancestor : especially if you are not sure about the Buergerort of your ancestor - if there are not too many "candidates", just write to all of them, and ask whether they find your ancestor in their data. Send such "circulars" only for ancestors with a good chance to have been alive and in Switzerland after 1876 - otherwise too many requests, which might be considered silly, might only upset people : wouldn't hurt you directly, but would change their attitude towards genealogical requests in general - and might hurt future requestors. > 6. one town asked me to explain them my direct relationship to my > ancestor. > Which is the information needed to handle a request for permission. > As you can see not every town/commun is dealing with your request the same > > manner. You can have luck and pay nothing or you can pay a fee fairly > expensive. > You will never get a Familienschein for free ! Other information, especially for the period pre 1876 (which is not goverened by Zivilstandsverordnung) you will get free in some instances - but you'll never know, when - so it's better to ask first, if you want to avoid a surprise. > Concerning the permission a have the feeling, that the regulations are not > > applied everywhere. > True - but don't tell anyone ;-). Otherwise the more friendly people might be forced to change their attitude. > Or maybe there is another reason for that. Then all my > ancestors I was looking for are born 150 to 200 years ago. So I think > probably after a certain period (100 or 120 years) your do not need any > permission anymore. > True - only information via a Familienschein requires permission. The exact definition of the "starting date" is still not available : some people use 1876 (when the Civil Registry system was set up), others 120 years - which isn't all that much different today, but would be of importance for the future. What is worse - it is not clearly defined, whether the date limit (1876, or minus 120 years) applies to the date of collecting the information, or the date of birth of the person concerned; example : a person was born 1810, but still lived in 1876 - so information on him would be collected by Zivilstandsamt retrospectively in 1876 - would you need a permission (remember - the "120 year rule" was set up to make fairly sure the person concerned is no longer alive) ?? This is not defined by Zivilstandsverordnung (a bad omission !) - and therefore it will very much depend on how the Civil Registrar interpretes the Ordinance; especially if (s)he just wants to be left alone, (s)he'll say you need a permission :-(. > Max Kunzle > Thanks for reporting your experiences, and best regards - Wolf ---------------------- Wolf W. Seelentag, PhD, e-mail : wolf@swissmail.com Reherstr. 19, CH - 9016 St. Gallen, Switzerland Tel (home) : +41-71-2885121 Fax : +49-89-2443-91987 Tel (work) : +41-71-4942233