GENEAL-FORUM

Hello from the States! I have a few questions I was wondering if anyone can help me with---

My Fehr family line dates back to Rochus Fehr (1665-1725). There is record of his father before him, Johann Fehr and his wife, Agatha Thoni both from Eschen, but no dates for his or her birth, death or marriage. Can anyone tell me why that would be if their names are recorded but no dates? Also, why would there not be any further record going back before these dates--were records not kept that long ago or were they destroyed possibly during a significant event...?

Also, my grandfather immigrated to the United States in 1925 at the age of 23 and the following year, his 17-year-old brother also immigrated to the States. How, generally, was this viewed by families when their sons or daughters left their family and homeland to come to the U.S. (or any where)? Did some families have animosity towards them that they would be abandoning their duty to their family to help with a family business or running a household possibly?

Economically, what was happening (if anything) in Liechtenstein during the turn of the century and into the 1920's that could have influenced my grandfather's and his brother's decision to leave their family and homeland at that time?

Thank you so much for any answers or information anyone may have!

Best regards,
CJFehr

CJ, some feed-back, rater from good will than specific knowledge about Lichtenstein:

earliest church records I heard of are dated around 1550, or later. Usually, only the names of the child, the parents and the witnesses were listed. Extracting a family from that is very difficult, since early entries are not indexed. You have to go through all the pages to check for matches. Difficulties maybe illegible writing, different spellings, and to decide which of a limited numer of names concern identical individuals, or different ones sharing the same name. So maybe someone found the baptism record of your progeniator, but could not identify the parents. Although the 30-years-war did not devast the area of Lichtenstein as bad as other places, your idea of some churchbooks being lost or destroyed might apply, too.

Who could say about the individual situation of your emigrating ancestors. But in general, there was limited space, and farms could not be didvided to give each child a share to make his living from it. Tourism came up around 1900, but there was hardly any industrial jobs. So there was little perspectives for young men to stay at home, while America ever had that image of someone arriving with a dollar in his pocket became a millionaire.

Maybe a Lichtenstein native will post an answer, or you even find contacts to someone of your family there. Good Luck!

Hello and thank you for your reply! I appreciate your thoughts and comments which definitely help to give me a better understanding.

Regarding a family contact, I am actually in the process of trying to connect with a 2nd counsin in Schaan who I just learned about--our grandfathers were brothers! Hopefully, he will be interested in corresponding with me and sharing a more complete picture of our family.

Thank you again for your response.

Best regards,
CJFehr