THE SWISS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA 1652-1970 - swissroots-za.ch

general reader. The following comparisons with English and German spelling might
suffice.
TABLE 1
Dutch phonetics
Dutch English equivalent German equivalent
a a as in last a as in Last
e e as in den e as in denn
g ch as in loch ch as in Loch
j y as in yes j as in ja
ng ng as in sing in as in singen
o at end of word or syllable o as in do u as in gut
oe, oo ou as in you u as in du
ou ow as in low ou as written
sch sch as in school sk as in Skizze
sj sh as in show sch as in Schau
u u as in the French word du ü as in Tür
ui, uy oi as in loins eu as in Reue
v f as in fat f as in Fass
w v as in vat w as in was
y ay as in tray ei as in Ei
Very often names would be distorted by usage to adapt to the Dutch tongue.
Examples are Loubser and Losber for Laubscher, Yselle for Iseli and Hongerbuydel for
Hungerbüller.
3.2 Swiss Origins of Arrivals
It is appropriate to mention at the outset that each Swiss is the citizen of a particular
commune (village or town) and that he inherits this citizenship from his father
irrerspective of where he was born. Thus a family might live for generations anywhere
else, yet remain citizens of the commune of origin. Until the beginning of the nineteenth
century nearly all families still lived at their place of origin, then industrialisation
caused increasing population movements. An example is the watch industry which
developed in the Jura attracting many families from, for example, the Bernese Oberland.
Since the beginning of this century the place of birth of Swiss increasingly differs from
their place of origin. Where both are known, the latter will be shown in brackets.
The system of passing citizenship from father to children born in wedlock resulted in
anachronisms. The children of a Swiss man and his non-Swiss wife, who were born and
raised in a foreign country, would be registered as Swiss, whereas when a Swiss woman
married a Non-Swiss, even though he may have been born and raised in Switzerland,
lost her Swiss citizenship and both she and her children were assigned the nationality of
her husband. In this work we have treated all individuals born in Switzerland as Swiss.
Each commune in Switzerland keeps a register of its citizens. When a man marries, a
new page is opened for him and his family. This system greatly facilitates genealogical
research when the records are accessible.
The Familiennamenbuch der Schweiz lists all Swiss surnames both extinct and extant,
citing when and in which communes they had received citizenship rights. Extensive but
cautious use was made of this book to check or even determine the origin of Swiss
where this was not recorded at the Cape. In special cases civil registrars were asked for
verification and this was often kindly supplied together with additional information, as
in the case of Gabriel Jenny of Ennenda GL, “The Major who turned Farm Labourer”.
Information obtained by these means is shown between square brackets.
Another point to be remembered is that cantonal boundaries were only given their
present shape in 1803. Before that date the Vaud was part of Canton Berne, Aargau
belonged to Cantons Berne and Zurich, Thurgau was part of Canton Zurich and Canton
St. Gall had not yet been formed. Men from Vaud would for instance name (Canton)
7