Descendants of Oberholz Switzerland 2018 by Overholser Family Association compiling editor Dennis L Oberholtzer With ties to JL, SL, JF, AO, MC, MT, ML, & HJ Families in America. Possible tie to Christian Oberholtzer of South Africa & MV. Descendants of Oberholz Switzerland Page 1 Descendants of Oberholz Switzerland By Dennis L Oberholtzer, 2018 The Overholser Family Association began in 1906 as a family gathering in Terre Hill, in Lancaster County Pennsylvania. Within the first decade there were people from several distant states coming to the Reunion in hope of finding their root origins. It was not until the 1980's that we were able to connect our heritage across the Atlantic Ocean to Germany, and then to Switzerland. Our first published book, The Oberholtzer Book, written by Barbara B Ford, with an introduction by Will Overholtzer, tabulated the first five generations in America, with ties to the Oberholz Homestead in the Canton of Zürich. But the only true connection was through name association. We had no direct family line connecting the Protestant Family living across the valley with the earlier homestead in the village of Oberholz. This has now been resolved! Over the past four decades, with the help of Rosy Oberholzer from the Inn at Oberholz, and especially John L Overholt of Virginia, along with many others, I have been able to confirm direct ties. The Swiss family line is shown here, and we have them connected to this same lineage. Barbara B Ford organized The Oberholtzer Book by using a two letter code for each immigrant, or earliest known member of a family line. The lines which can be directly connected to the European families are shown here with their corresponding code. Julius Billeter did a study of family, parish, and population registers in the regions of Wald, Gossau, Ruti, Zürich, Richterswil, Hinwil, and Hombrectikon. These towns are listed with the people of whom we have knowledge of from these areas. The European lines are now designated with Barbara Ford's coding system. The American Lines have separate codes for each family line, and if they connect to Europe, the code is hyphenated beside the European Line. The coding system is like this: The two letter code corresponds with each individual family. OS is the code for the Oberholz family in Switzerland. Codes from America will be included in brackets [__] after the OS number. The number after the letter code is the number of the child in the generational family. If there are more than 10 children, the numbers change to a small case letter. Each additional number in the code line represents an additional generation. A period comes after each five generations, with color differences for quick referencing. Present coding system: OS11215.27921.1 [MC15] Esther Oberholtzer d/o Jacob son of Marcus immigrant 1712 m George Bachman The present system in this document has several colors. This is not to differentiate the numbers of generations. Rather, the colors in this document represent the additions of outside information added to the text from other sources. It is decided for the present time to do this to enable researchers an easier way to separate sources. This can speed the process of correcting mistakes, or adding additional materials. In the future all lines will be the same color, but will change color every five generations for quicker cross-checking. Sample of future coding system: OS11215.27921.1 [MC15] Esther Oberholtzer d/o Jacob son of Marcus immigrant 1712 m George Bachman Esther Oberholtzer is the first daughter of Jacob and the granddaughter of immigrant Marcus from the European Line. So she has both a European number code, listed first, with a bracketed American code prior to her name. The American line only carries forward with the American code. Descendants of Oberholz Switzerland Page 2 OBERHOLZ/AATHAL SWISS FAMILY LINE - updated July 2018 by Dennis L Oberholtzer The Alemanni Tribe was transplanted from Alsace to the Canton of Zürich in the 5th Century C.E. The Oberholz family was transplanted to the area of Lake Constance first. Records there tell of their history and activities, and of their re-location to the area above the grove of trees in what is now the village of Oberholz. The first known Alemanni family moved to and built the Hof (farm) of Oberholz in the 7th Century. "Oberholz as a place name was used in the 13th Century." -John L. Overholt 1217 People of Oberholz belong to the Wald Catholic Church Der Hof Oberholz und Der Bauer Oberholzer 1438. - Oberholz Family Tree, Oberholz SWI 1438 Farmer Oberholzer in argument over paying taxes. - REF: Robert S Oberholtzer, 9/1999, Das Alte Oberholz und die Familie Oberholzer The farm of Oberholzer was documented Mar 5, 1438 (Kilger), with Farmer Oberholzer being persecuted in 15th Cent. Fall 1438 Oberholz becomes part of Canton Uznach, breaking from Canton of Zürich 1523 Uznach remains firm in Catholicism. Two brothers O, one Catholic in Oberholz & one Protestant in Wald 1532 The first split in church affiliation - Das Alte Oberholz und die Familie Oberholzer, 1999 Robert S Oberholzer During a conference in Schanis in 1550, the authorities of the Cantons of Schwiz and Clarus raised accusations against a certain Hans from Oberholz and his wife for "occasionally associating with the Anabaptists." - Linth Zeitung, regional newspaper, translated by Lewis Overholt Village history goes back to 1520 (Billeter), 1601 in the Hinwil District of Zürich (Gruenigen). 1611 Deaths from plague in Oberholz were 6 adults and 14 children 1612 Bernhard and Ulrich Oberholzer join church in Goldingen "Exit records in the Zürich Archives show Oberholzers leaving SWI for the Palatinate or Odenwald 1650 - 1663".... - Barbara Ford, JF Files 1658 Plague strikes Uznach "Some Oberholtzers came as tenant farmers to Sinsheim in 1654, and settled in 1661. The Elector lived in a castle with a central tower 100 ft. high and walls 16 feet thick. He was a Protestant surrounded by Catholics... Six families came from Zürich, Only one family, widower Jacob with two children came to America." - John L. Overholt 1731 - Martin & Jacob Oberholtzer appear as members of the Mennonite Congregation on the Herr Hoff(farm), in the Upper Palatinate, whence they came from Switzerland in earlier days. - See Miller, p. 209, John L. Overholt Papers * bezeichnet vor einfuhrung der zivilstandsregister das datum der taufe & hernach das datum der geburn. Village of Oberholz in Switzerland 1986 CE taken by Will Overholtzer This shows the original house with nearly attached barn, built in the 1500's. It was replaced in the year 2000. Descendants of Oberholz Switzerland Page 3 A Beautiful Beginning by Nelson Lafon, Roanoke, VA ([email protected] ) On August 13, 2011, my wife, Emily Marston, and I visited the ancestral villages of Aatal and Oberholz near Wald in northeastern Switzerland. The generous advice provided by Dennis Oberholtzer, John Shinpaugh, and Jack Sholl of the Overholser Family Association made the visit more enjoyable and fruitful. On a Friday evening after a whirlwind walking tour of Zürich, we entered the world of the local Swiss and commuted eastward to the small working class village of Dürnten. We rented a room for the night from a nice family who pointed us to a local festival. It was one of those little gems that a tourist might miss: bratwursts, fried potatoes, and a Swiss-style country band playing just enough American cover songs for us to forget we weren’t at our own town fair! The next morning, we took a bus to Wald. Close to Wald, the winding road hugged a whitewater stream amid dense conifer forests before leveling out into a high valley surrounded by small mountains (for Switzerland) reminiscent of the Appalachians . Arriving at the bus station in downtown Wald, a picturesque but not overly-touristy little town, we struck out immediately to find the Wanderweg (footpath) north to Aatal where our protestant Oberholzer family would have lived prior to their emigration to Germany. Since the day was perfect for hiking - and since our main goal was to trek to Aatal and Oberholz on our way to a local peak - we didn’t look too hard for churches or graveyards that our ancestors may have used. There was a prominent Protestant Church building there, which could have been where some of our Oberholzer family worshiped. We walked upstream along a well-groomed trail for a couple of miles, weaving among ruins of old stone dams and spillways, to some large pasture lands surrounding the little settlement of Aatal (Figure 1). We encountered an interesting gentleman there who was quite familiar with the history of the area. We learned that the streams around Wald had powered mills and textile industries in the 1800s. In his view, the Protestants who moved to the valleys and towns were more educated and industrious than their agrarian, traditional Catholic cousins who stuck to their mountain villages and farms. He stressed to us just how clearly divided the Protestant and Catholic areas are to this day. As we stood outside of his house in Aatal, we were within one mile west of one of those dividing lines – the Canton boundary between Protestant Zürich and Catholic St. Gallen. Reversing the steps of my ancestors over three centuries ago, we climbed the sunny slopes and crossed the line. Oberholz, perched on the western edge of Canton St. Gallen, overlooks Jona Valley – where Wald and Aatal are located – to the east and the Obersee (upper Lake Zürich) and the distant Alps to the south (Fig. 2-4). We strolled along the several streets that comprise Oberholz, trying to adequately take in the distant views while absorbing the close-knit village.