LOCATING THE CHURCHBOOKS: I. To Locate Churchbooks for a particular location (they may be maintained at the hometown church, or at a nearby parish, or at the Staatsarchiv): You can view the data by beginning at: http://www.eye.ch/swissgen/kibu/ (don't forget to bookmark it) other mirror sites (in case the one above seems slow) are found at: http://www.genealogienetz.de/reg/CH/kibu/ http://swiss.genealogy.net/kibu/ http://german.genealogy.net/reg/CH/kibu/ II. To obtain the actual microfilm numbers of the particular church record you will need to visit: http://www.eye.ch/swissgen/ldsloc-m.htm and click through the canton, then to the village, and continue into the LDS FamilySearch website. Then press VIEW FILM NOTES button. Reading the German Text at "Film Notes": Taufen: Baptism Heiraten: Marriage Tote: Death ------------------------------------------------------------------- III. As you probably found out, church records for Wynau BE have not yet been microfilmed. Although it's just a matter of time now. I'll ask Dave Schmutz of the Bern Group if he can get a physical check and contact you with the results. IV. Meanwhile, if you wish, you can inquire of the Staatsarchiv which will know the microfilming schedule and which will have the church records in their archive. Provide your internet address TWICE (repeat: twice) for them. Their snailaddress & e-mail address are: ===== Staatsarchiv Bern Falkenplatz 4 3012 Bern Switzerland ---------------------- e-mail address: <<A HREF="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</A>> V. IMPORTANT NOTE (GETTING YOUR LETTER TRANSLATED INTO GERMAN, FRENCH, ITALIAN, OR OTHER LANGUAGE): Write your form letter in English and e-mail just the body of the letter to the online translator group. They will put it into German for you at no charge. As in FOR FREE. Be sure and send it exactly as they request it be sent. Even now, if I send something to them it will get bounced back at least once because it must pass thru their computer before it is accepted, and the computer is programmed to not accept any request that does not comply with each of their rules of submission. Here are the hoops you must jump thru: 1) The very first entry in the body will be: #ENG>GER which means the request is for English into German. And the # sign must be there, too, or it'll be rejected by their computer which guards the door and which has a very bad attitude. 2) Send only the body of the form letter, because the computer counts every word in the body toward the maximum of forty lines of type. Also, the computer seems to count words and then decide how many lines of type there is. Your best chance is to keep it under thirty lines if you can. And hope the computer considers it as under forty. I really do look forward to the day when computers run our lives, don't you? The address to which the translation request may be sent is: ===== Translation Team http://www.genealogy.net/gene/misc/translation.html ===== ***** there is another at: ===== NEW TRANSLATOR SITE http://translator.go.com/cb/trans_entry ===== Have never tried the second one, so know nothing about it. A sneaky trick you might be bold enough to try: In your e-mail, do mention: "I am looking for Hans Wittnauer, Baptised in Wynau in January 1668." And also do provide your mailing address. This way you are not authorizing them to do a search for you (for which you would be billed), but there is a good chance they will snailmail you whatever info they find without charge. IMPORTANT NOTE: You must indicate to them your direct lineal relationship in order for them to check their records (Federal privacy rules), so instead of just Hans Wittnauer, refer to him as "my g-g-g grandfather Hans Wittnauer." Let me know if you get stopped anywhere. Pete Mattli SSD Admin Clermont, FL [email protected] ================== Subj: [SWITZ] Wynau Date: 2/9/2003 4:21:20 PM Eastern Standard Time From: <A HREF="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</A> To: <A HREF="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</A> Sent from the Internet (Details) Could someone tell me where I might find the church records for Wynau, Canton Bern? The Mormon Church microfilm does not have a listing for Wynau. Hans Wittnauer was bapt. in Wynau in January 1668. I would be grateful for any help. Anne McAllister Hickory, North Carolina =========================