Vechigen and Bern

Friday!  Another family history day.  We drove to a small town not to far from Bern (where we are staying) named Vechigen (pronounced Vekigen...the k is a hard hacking sound:) where I wanted to find some info about a lady named Magdalena Wegmuller.  The records I have show that she was born in 1712.  This is the church where she would have attended.  Inside of the church, painted on the wall, there is a list of all the pastors who have served there since the 1600's. 

 

 

 

Here is a picture of the surrounding area.

 

 

Rick at one of the many public fountains.  This water comes right out of the swiss alps and is very clear and tasty.

 

 

Long story short......we couldn't find any info at the city offices in Vechigen so Brunner, the man who helped us, got us in touch with a woman at the state archives.  We  went to see her and she pulled out a book that was hand written in 1705 by the pastor of Hans Ulrich Zaugg.  He was Magdalena's husband.  This was a book of all of the births in the area through the early 1700's.  Pretty amazing stuff!  This is information that I already had but it was neat to see this book.  The alphabet was different back then.  It says Hans Ulrich on the left.  Next to his name is Elias Zaug with Barbara Kobel underneath.  These were his parents.  The "P" off to the side means that his parents were married.  The names underneath that were Hans' godparents.  Godparents are very common in Switzerland, even today.  They were listed as someone who would become guardian if ever anything happend to the parents. 

We were able to look through some microfilm and we think we have found Magdalena.  Her actual name is Madlena.  Now I have to find her marriage record and her parents names.  She needs to be sealed to them.  Work to be done!

 

 

We spent the late afternoon seeing the sights of Old Town Bern.  (pronounced burn) It is just a 10 minute walk from our hotel.  Here is another public water fountain.

 

 

We stopped at a French Bistro for a small salad and a cup of soup.  French Onion.  Way good but super expensive.  Would you believe $12 for this small cup??  It truly was.  Switzerland is just plain expensive.  Everything is high priced!  The other day we were having lunch and when the bill came we were charged $15 for our water.  THAT WAS JUST OUR WATER!!  We decided after that we would fill up our plastic water bottles at the hotel and sneak them into the whatever restaurant we are at and drink for free:) 

We're chalking it up as the European experience!