Hello Listers, I have a many times great grandmother born in the town of Zurich on 15 Jul 1626. My records show her name as Beatrix Usterin. In looking thru the Family Search, she shows up as Beatrix Usteri, father is Hans Heinrich Usteri. Can anyone tell me which is the right spelling? I would appreciate any help on this. Alice Davison, Yuma, Az.

> Von: YumaMother@aol.com [mailto:YumaMother@aol.com] > Gesendet: Freitag, 6. Mai 2005 19:42 > > Hello Listers, > I have a many times great grandmother born in the town of > Zurich on 15 Jul 1626. My records show her name as Beatrix > Usterin. In looking thru the Family Search, she shows up as > Beatrix Usteri, father is Hans Heinrich Usteri. Can anyone > tell me which is the right spelling? I would appreciate any > help on this. > Alice Davison, Yuma, Az. Both are correct - depending on the circumstances. The Usteri family was originally from Erlenbach (canton Zuerich) and gained citizenship of the city of Zuerich in 1407(!). At the time the name was spelled Uster, though, likely from the town of Uster (canton Zuerich). Uster hold several citizenships, since before 1800 in cantons Zug and Zuerich - only the line of the city of Zuerich now uses the spelling Usteri. The "Usterin" is a different matter: to add "...in" to a surname of a female is still practice in many German speaking areas, though this will not be used in official documents any longer. "Usterin" therefore means that the family name is either Uster or Usteri, but the person in question is female. It is quite likely that Beatrix will be listed as "Beatrix Usterin" in e.g. the marriage register - but I still would recommend to record her as Betrix Uster in your genealogy program; anyone familiar with genealogy in German speaking areas in this time frame will know anyway that she was called Usterin. Best regards - Wolf __________________ Wolf Seelentag, Ph.D. Reherstr. 19 CH - 9016 St.Gallen +41 (0) 71 - 288 51 21 wolf.seelentag@swissonline.ch