GENEAL-FORUM

My great grandfather was Joseph Anthony Hofstetter, born in 1848, we believe, in Switzerland. Had a sister named Josephine. His parents died while he was young, and he was raised by an aunt and uncle. He emigrated to America in 1860's.

Trying to find out how to get started on locating what canton he came from, and then locating other descendants of the family.

Thanks very much for any assistance.

Fred M. Hofstetter

First of all - welcome to the forum, Fred !

Unfortunately Hofstetter is a fairly widespread name in Switzerland: check the Register of Swiss Surnames yourself for potential places of citizenship. Less common are the spellings Hofstädter and Hofstätter - which are pronounced almost indentically and therefore will also have to be considered. Consequently - unless someone reads your posting and recognises the story - without further information this is searching for the needle in the heystack.

Try to get more information either about the emigration (passenger lists, ...) or on your side of the Atlantic (naturalization record, census data, ...) to determine a better defined starting point over here.

You are also looking for other descendants of the family. This is understandable, but to get information on living descendants in Switzerland "officially" is more or less impossible due to the Swiss privacy legislation. With rare surnames the telephone directory can help - but Hofstetter is not one of these rare names. Once you have found your ancestor, it should not be too difficult to find other family members being born early 20th century (at least 100 years ago). This would raise your chances that someone recognises one of them considerably.

Vielen Dank, Wolf

Based on the registries, St. Gallen and Luzern seem like good places to start. I am trying to chase my great-grandfather from this end, like his port of entry. No luck yet.

This has been a bit of a haystack. If I can get more information that will narrow my search, I intend to come to der Schweiz and look around.

Best, Fred