----- Original Message ----- From: <Halltall@aol.com> To: <SWITZERLAND-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, November 25, 1999 12:25 PM Subject: [SWITZ] Re: SWITZERLAND-D Digest V99 #442 > The Swiss Surname directory used by the person doing my lookup was dated > 1940. not much help for we Americans who are investigating our Swiss > ancestors who may have come over in the 18th or 19th centuries. Is there > another site? > <snip> You misunderstand how the Familienamenbuch der Schweiz (FNBS) is used in the Swiss Surname Directory. This series of volumes shows the origin (where and when) of citizenship for Swiss families at about the date the FNBS edition was issued. The main change in the more recent edition was the addition of detailed data for families which had moved into towns and cities in this century. Given the increased mobility of the population in this century it is a useful addition. The real key to this book is that a very large majority of Swiss families will still be found in or near their historic origins (pre-1800). They often will have expanded from that base, and sometimes may have died out in a particular ancestral town, but they are often still found in the same area. So FNBS data (from whatever edition) gives you a very good idea of the areas of Switzerland which deserve closer scrutiny. The volumes do not show you where a family used to have citizenship but is no longer present. Nor do they show surnames which have disappeared by emigration or "daughtering out." They also do not show families of a given surname which may be living in a given town but whom retain their citizenship at their original town. Regards, Mike Hobart