More Homberger Family in Binzikon

More Homberger Family in Binzikon

Jean M. Hoffman, CG

I wrote two years ago about a Canton Zurich index of old marriage records [here]. In them I found that the furthest back Homberger ancestor in the gemeinde of Egg was originally from the gemeinde of Grüningen in the village of Binzikon. He was married twice before the move to Egg, the second wife, Elsbeth Buchmann being the Hoffman ancestor. The Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City has microfilm of church records from Grüningen and viewing them was to be my next step.

Last summer when the FHL announced the end of microfilm lending, I quickly ordered the Grüningen film, no. 996915. It was only last Saturday that I was ready to look at it. First I checked it in the online catalog for details of what I would be seeing. It was a surprise to find it has already been digitized and put online. But it is in a “locked” state allowing viewing only in Family History Centers or affiliate libraries, so I can't view it at home. But I was in an affiliate library and spent time happily locating records of family members.

We now have images of the actual marriage records for Rudolf Homberger. Because he was first married in 1681, I estimated his birth about 25 years earlier. That was quite close. He was born (or probably baptized) on 10 November 1657. His father was Bernhard Homberger and his mother was Elsbeth Maurer. Her first name is a variant of Elisabetha. There were birth records of Rudolf's siblings and cousins. The cousins were the children of his uncle Diethelm Homberger and Elsbeth Hoffman. Later we'll get baptismal records of all his siblings and cousins, and hopefully his parents. The death of his first wife was in 1692 but he did not remarry until 1696. Both wives were from the adjacent gemeinde of Hombrechtikon. At the FamilySearch website in the family tree, this family is present with names even of Rudolf's grandparents who were probably born before 1600. The Homberger part of the Hoffman family tree is going to be growing.

We are also looking into details about Grüningen and Binzikon. One source is an atlas (ortslexikon) of Canton Zurich from 1835. We used to use in on microfiche at a Family History Center but now we can see color images rather than black and white film at Ancestry.com. Wikipedia has a little and the gemeinde has a website.

From his 1657 baptismal record you can see the date of 10 9bris (an abbreviation for November), the place of Binzikon (spelled Bintzicon), father's name, mother's maiden name, child's name (with an annotation we haven't deciphered yet), godfather Rudolf Walder and godmother Klienannlj Walder. The year only appears at the start of each new year.