Welcome to the

Zurbruegg

Family History

Research

Home Page.

Selections:

Zurbrügg's to North America.

Zurbrügg's - Montana homestead.

Zurbrügg's in Ohio, 1838.

Other Z's related websites:

     Buschlen of Frutigen & Canada

Links

Return to site home page.

The village of Frutigen, looking north from the Tellenburg Castle.

The Frutigen railroad bridge, looking SE from the Tellenburg Castle.

Samuel Zurbruegg, with Karoline and Ernst.

Emil Zurbruegg's family in 1913. L-R: Gertrude, Lina, Bertha, Emil & Olga.

Emil's family ~1920: L-R: Emil, Albert, Bertha, Gertrude & Olga.

Lina's grave site in the cemetery east of Broadview, Montana.

When did Emil Z. come to the USA?

Was it 1898, as given in his obituary, or was it in 1901?

This was the initial question that started my Zurbruegg family history research.

It has resulted in walking in their "footsteps"

on their former homestead in Montana.  What a thrill!

The books of Swiss Surnames (Vero Beach, FL library,#949.4) states

that surname alone is scarcely sufficient information.

Knowledge of the place of citizenship is

in Switzerland just as important and a necessity.

The Zurbrügg surname comes from the Canton of Bern,

in the villages of Frutigen and Reichenback im Kandertal.

Based on Emil's birth certificate, his Z's are from Frutigen.

Surprisingly, there is quite a bit of Zurbrügg information available from

the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.  (www.familysearch.org)

 A surname search shows that Swiss genealogist Julius Billeter in 1917 did

a family lineage of five (5) families of Frutigen and the Z's were one of these.

Emil's father, Samuel, shows up in this lineage as # 3006.

(I charted this 1917 report, only the Z's, and the resulting chart

covered the size of a king size bed.)

In 1979, Frank Zurbrigg of Canada put together a large family tree of the Z's,

working with Gertrud Z. of Frutigen, Switzerland,

who did the church records research.

In comparing Gertrud's results with Billeter's results,

only four (4) discrepancies were found.

So the two research efforts complement each other.

Immigration information is available via the Ellis Island database.

It turns out that Emil came in 1901.

His sister, Carolina, arrived 22 Apr 1900 in NYC,

 with her last name transcribed as "Zurbingg" on the Ellis Island database.

The entire family came between 1900 and 1904.

So they show up in 1910 and 1920 census information.

For some reason, Emil and family do not show up in the 1920 census.

But Arnold & family and Samuel's wife, Karoline, are in the 1920 census.

Homestead information is available via the 'Bureau of Land Management

-General Land Office Records' website.  Search the Land Patents

with Montana and Zurbruegg at the following URL:

"http://www.glorecords.blm.gov"

Homesteads were issue to Sam, Karolina, Arnold, Emil and Ernest.

The Montana State Genealogical Society

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~mtmsgs/

has a First Families Project.

First Familes are those who arrived prior to statehood on 8 Nov. 1889.

The project also includes Early Settlers who arrived between

 9 Nov 1889 and 31 Dec 1929.  So the Zurbruegg's fit this latter designation.

A website with lots of Montana photos is:

http://www.montanapictures.net

They even have photos of Broadview, MT.

Having fun with genealogy,  Walt Bruetsch.  Updated 19 Feb 2017