What happens when you are not considered a citizen of the only place you have ever known, the place you call home? Where everything that is familiar, from the language to the food, the songs, the hills that surround the lakes where you played as a child? What is life like when you are, still, homeless in your own country? When your homeland does not recognize you as a citizen, making you stateless, an outcast?
This was not something I was contemplating when I found the Frey family in the Canton of Fribourg 1818 census.
Entry 51 in this folio lists as residents in the parish of Gurmels in the Canton of Fribourg, taken on 16 January 1818 : Anna Maria Frey, age 55, Zemn, Canton Lucerne, widow; Elisabeth, 16, Kriegstetten, Solothurn, single; Mariana, 13, Biberist, Solothurn, single; Katthry, 8, Bremis, Wallis. The far right column notes they are all Heimatlos, or stateless. I took to Swiss genealogy discussion boards to learn about the possible reasons for their status, and also to figure out where the mother, Anna Maria Frey, was born. “Zemn” is not a place I could find in Lucerne or in any other cantons. Fortunately, a native Swiss-German speaker experienced in dealing with old documents figured it out: she probably told the enumerator she was “zu Emmen“, from Emmen, which is indeed a commune in the Canton of Lucerne. The same researcher was able to locate her baptismal record:
I did not find the parents’ marriage in Emmen. The record does not mention their places of origin, which makes the search harder. The pattern of absent, inconsistent, or incomplete information starts and becomes the norm with this family line. This record shows no indication that Anna Maria’s parents were foreigners, stateless. This was either by omission on this particular record, or she was born a citizen but lost this status due to marriage.
Here is how things went for her: In 1818, the Canton of Fribourg entered an agreement with the Portuguese crown to send 100 families to settle in the mountains outside of Rio de Janeiro, where Portugal’s court had relocated during the Napoleonic Wars. The agreement was mutually beneficial, as King John VI wished to experiment with subsidized colonization, and Europe was experiencing crop failure and population displacement following the wars that raged in the prior decades, and the environmental aftermath of the Mount Tambora eruption, that led to the “Year Without a Summer”.
According to Swiss-Brazilian genealogist Henrique Bon, who has done extensive research and published a book recounting the voyage (made also into a children’s version), several of the immigrants bound for Brazil traveled with their expenses paid for by the local communes, that wished to be rid of poor citizens who burdened the local administration and churches’ treasuries.
Mr. Bon is very generous answering my inquiries, but we could not come with a definite reason for the Frey-Guttemann women to be considered stateless. He pointed out that some of the immigrants in that journey were widows with children. It is not difficult to infer that those were people who could not secure a living without the male head of the household, and would be likely candidates to get a ticket out of town from the local authorities.
Anna Maria’s immigration papers show she was the daughter of Joseph Frey, and the widow of Agostinho Gutermann, as their names were written down by immigration officials. As it was customary in Brazil, she showed on records with her husband’s last name, henceforth appearing as Anna Maria Gutermann (with various spelling variations of the last name). She came in the company of the three daughters aboard the Daphne. Their journey was harrowing, with overcrowded vessels in which nearly a quarter of the passengers perished due to the unsanitary conditions, as I wrote in two previous posts about the other half of my Swiss ancestry.
Shortly after her arrival, Anna Maria married a fellow immigrant, a French-speaking widower by the name of Joseph Ferdinand Steulet. She died in the city of Nova Friburgo on 16 July 1839, by then twice-widowed. The eldest daughter married immigrant Anton Klein, the second daughter went to live in the capital city of Rio de Janeiro, and we lost track of her. The youngest child married an old neighbor from Gurmels, Hans Wagner, starting a numerous family in Campos dos Goytacazes.
I wanted to find out more about their circumstances, or at least make the most educated inference possible in the light of the civil laws of their places of origin. Also, I needed to find out more about the family member who never made it to Brazil: Agostinho, or Joseph Augustin Guttmann.
As of the writing of this post, I have not yet found their marriage record. I found documents showing they had a son named Joseph born in Deitingen, Solothurn, on 29 Oct 1798. He was buried in Kriegstetten, SO, on 24 May 1799. In Joseph’s baptism entry, the parents are Joseph Augustin Guttman and Anna Maria Æmila Frey, Godparents Joseph Stüdi from Grenchen, and Maria Anna Grolimund. The place of origin of the father is Canton Wallis, or Valais. They are noted as vagi, short for vagabondi, vagrants, maybe part of the traveling peoples who have lived in Switzerland for centuries. Their presence in many communities was, and still is, generally not welcomed, and historically they have been seen with prejudice and little tolerance by the communities on their way. They moved together in caravans, typically looking for employment on farms during harvest season, and found other temporary jobs in trades as blacksmiths and carpenters. I cannot determine with certainty if this was their situation.
One year after Joseph’s death, his sister Elisabeth was baptised in Kriegstetten. Born on 30 April 1800, the father’s name appears as Augustinus Guttman, mother Anna Maria Frey. Josephus Stüdeli stands as the godfather as he did for Joseph, and another Grolimund woman is the godmother, which leads me to believe they may be related to the Guttmann-Frey family. Regarding the father’s origin, the notation has Lausanen, different from what we see on the previous record. Also noted the word conversus, indicating Augustin was not born in the Catholic faith.
The next daughter, Maria Anna, was born in Biberist, another community in Canton Solothurn, on 29 May 1803. This time the parents are noted as vagrants. The godfather is Sebastian Werbold from Schüpfen, godmother is maternal aunt Maria Anna Frey.
The last birth I could find was that of my ancestor, Katharina. She was born in Bramois, in the Canton of Valais. Unlike her siblings, she was born in a French-speaking region, where church records are not easy to research, and I had to request hers directly to the current abbot from the parish where she received the sacrament. Alas, older books are not housed in the church building, they were transferred to the state archives and can only be viewed in person. Abbot Rotten drove there to send me one more piece of the puzzle, and he has my immense gratitude.
This time the father is named Joseph Guttmann, mother Anna Maria Æmila Frey. The parents are noted as inerto vagorum. The officiating priest was the godfather, the godmother was Catherine, her last name not readable.
I hypothesize that Anna Maria Æmila Frey was not born to vagrant parents, but I could not find other children by Joseph Frey and Elisabeth Zubler in Emmen. We know she had at least one sibling, who was Maria Anna Guttmann’s godmother. Frey is a somewhat common surname. Zubler is found in several communes in Solothurn. This is why I believe they could be from that area, and not travelers passing by. Finding the Frey-Zubler marriage record would give us confirmation of that.
Joseph Augustin Guttmann remains a mystery, and I believe Anna Maria became Heimatlos when she married him. Their daugthers, though born in Switzerland, would not be considered citizens, as citizenship is passed down by the father. The Register of Swiss Surnames does not indicate Guttmann, with this spelling, is an “old” Swiss name, although we do find the variant Gutmann more frequently.
I cannot affirm that they were a part of one of the traditional traveling peoples of Switzerland, if going from place to place was their chosen way of life, or if this was a matter of circumstances in which they were continuously forced to dislocate in order to survive because of the war, poverty, or both. Augustin died sometime between Katharina’s birth and the time the enumerator knocked on Anna Maria’s door in Gurmels, in 1818.
As of the time I was wrapping up this post, I found an interesting record which I have not yet completely deciphered.
Above is the baptism record of a child named Maria Anna Guttmann. She was born in Grenchen, Canton of Solothurn, on 16 June 1809. Her father was Franc. Augustinus Guttmann, mother Margaretha Fasnacht. The couple were not married. Margaretha was from the town of Entlebuch in the Canton of Lucerne. Two things stand out: first, the name crossed out right above hers. That is our very own Anna MariaÆmila Frey. Second, the place of origin of Franciscus/Franz Guttmann. It is not clear, but it looks like it says: “Darischar Distr(ikt) Melsch Depart(ment) S(ankt) Hypolit”
Melsch, Meltsch, or Melč, is a hamlet in what today is Czechia. In the 18th Century, it was part of Silesia, in the Austrian Empire. It seems like we may have a lead of where to look next.
