----- Original Message ----- From: <Outriggger@aol.com> To: <SWITZERLAND-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, November 14, 1999 5:04 PM Subject: Re: [SWITZ] SWISS CENSUS > There were no censuses taken before the Bern City census of 1764, and the > first Federal Census (of April 1836 thru February 1838) was at best, very > incomplete. The Federal Census of 1841 corrected many of the shortcomings of > the previous census. In 1850, only people with rights of residence were > enumerated, and not the people actually in residence at the time. A bona fide > Federal Census was first taken in 1860, and has continued every ten years > since. Copies are available at state archives and also at most large city > archives and libraries. > Pete Mattli > Ft. Myers, FL <snip> It is also worth mentioning that the different Cantons followed different policies before the official Swiss Federal Census began in 1860. I have found the censuses in Graubünden to be extremely useful, especially as only some 50-60% of the various church registers are presently available on microfilm. This is especially important as the Chur registers (largest city in the canton) are not yet available on microfilm. Graubünden has censuses for 1835, 1838, 1848, and 1850 (all available on microfilm through the FHL). The 1835 census lists ages, the 1838 does not. The 1848 census has the christening (occasionally birth) date for virtually everyone (less complete for people living elsewhere and for residents of elsewhere living in a given place) - which is absolutely invaluable! For many towns there are special supplementary lists of emigrants to America for the 1848 census. The 1850 census is as Pete mentioned above, but has the advantage that occupations are listed and an effort was made to distinguish households, not usually done on the earlier censuses. One does run into a wide range of practices in how the censuses were filled out by the local officials (to put it very mildly!). I sometimes wonder if this is the reason that there were essentially two pairs of censuses (1835 and 1838), then (1848 and 1850). Perhaps the second census in each pair was needed to help interpret the results of the first one <g>. Just some of the variants I've seen for the 1835 census include - (1) listing all of the people in a town in order of their christening or birth date (!), (2) listing everyone alphabetically by surname but including the wife's maiden surname, (3) just like #2 but using the wife's married name rather than her maiden surname (drat!), (4) on RARE occasions actually listing the names as one would hope, father and mother (with her maiden surname), then the children, then on to the next family, and (5) occasionally combinations of the above - e.g. listing the older people in the town first, then at some age break switching over to style #2 above. Regards, Mike Hobart