Entries read in the free online volumes 2–4 of the Mennonite Encyclopedia (1955-1959). Volume 1 (A–C: Amish, Bender, Claassen, Conrad, Bern…) is still borrow-only. Initials are the authors (C.K. = Cornelius Krahn; H.S.B. = Harold S. Bender; C.Z.M. = C. Z. Mast).
Family names
| Name | Origin and highlights for this family |
|---|---|
| Neuenschwander (III) | “A man from Neuenschwand, near Langnau” (a place where forest was recently cleared). Uli Neuenschwander of Eggiwil spoke at the Bern disputation of 1538. Peter Neuenschwander and family left Langnau in 1729 for Cortébert in the Jura; a son Michael lived on the Münsterberg; his son Michael went to Normanvillars (France), to Wayne Co., Ohio in 1823, and to Putnam Co., Ohio in 1833 as its first Mennonite settler; a son John B. founded the Polk Co., Iowa settlement in 1849. Matches the vault’s Jura Neuenschwanders and Christian P. Neuenschwander (1812–1884)‘s Iowa years. |
| Lehman (III) | From the Emmental: “a person living on a gentle slope (Lehn)”; a farm named Lehn near Langnau. Wilhelm Lehman of Affterleen near Hasli, condemned 1566, pardoned. Most Lehmans left the Emmental 1700–1720 for the Palatinate, Alsace or the Bishopric of Basel (Jura). |
| Habegger (II) | From **[[Trub |
| Moser (III) | Numerous in the Emmental and the Bernese Jura; spread to the Palatinate and Alsace. |
| Sprunger (IV) | Not Bernese but **[[Thurgau |
| Hostetler (II) | All Anabaptist Hostetlers come from Guggisberg, Wahlern and Albligen (State Archivist Christian Lerch), matching Jacob Hochstetler (c.1666–c.1722) of Winterkraut. |
| Troyer (IV) | Swiss (Bern); Amish Troyers in Berks Co. from c.1733; Michael and Andreas Troyer members of the Northkill congregation by 1752 (Michael Troyer Sr. (d. 1807)‘s generation). |
| Yoder (IV) | Swiss: Steffisburg and Muri (Bern); the name comes from St. Joder (Theodore); Joders in Bern from the 14th century; Heini Joder jailed at Basel 1531 as an Anabaptist. |
| Zook (IV) | From Signau: the American Zooks descend from three brothers Christian, Moritz and Johannes Zug, grandsons of Hans Zoug, a Mennonite preacher of Signau imprisoned 1660–71; they reached Philadelphia in 1742. Christian Zug’s son’s Amish congregation near Malvern built the first Amish meetinghouse in America about 1795. (“Christel Zug”, who paid Christian Nisly (emigrated 1804)‘s passage in 1804, was of this family.) |
| Hooley / Holly (II) | Michael and Andreas Hooley arrived at Philadelphia 3 Nov 1750 (the Brotherhood); Andreas’s son John (1739–1805) married Catherine Blank. See Michael Holly (arr. 1750). |
| Mast (III, by C. Z. Mast) | Six American Mast lines; Jacob Mast (arr. 1750) = Bishop Jacob Mast (1738–1808). |
| Stutzman (IV) | Johann Jacob Stutzman arrived 1727; his grandson Christian married Barbara Hochstedler; their descendants’ book (1938) has over 15,000 entries. |
| Plank (IV) | Lists Melchior Plank’s descendants (David Plank 1833–1912; Solomon K. Plank, deacon in Wayne Co.). The Conestoga bishop Peter Plank was a different line, “great-grandson of a French Huguenot doctor”. |
| Schlabach (IV) | Swiss: Peter Schlapbach of Signau, Anabaptist 1538; see Hessian Amish (Waldeck and Hesse). |
| Nissley (III) | From the Emmental (Nüssli); “the Amish Nissleys may have a different progenitor”. |
| Gerig (II) | Alsatian family of the Mulhouse area; Benjamin Gerig was bishop at Smithville, Ohio 1896–1913, and his son J. S. Gerig from 1913. |
| Fieguth (II) | Rural Flemish congregations of West Prussia, first named **1656 at [[Pasewark |
| Toews (IV) | Prussian Mennonite, probably Dutch; preachers at Ladekopp (Isaac 1762, Johann Jr. 1767) and Heubuden; a Johann Toews was elder of Köppental in Am Trakt. |
| Ramseyer (IV) | Mentions Edna Ramseyer, professor at Bluffton College, and Lloyd L. Ramseyer, Bluffton’s president from 1938 (see Edna Ramseyer Kaufman (1910–2001)). |
Places
| Place | Highlights |
|---|---|
| Ladekopp (III) | Village in the Vistula–Nogat delta, existing by 1255; Mennonite church organized 1735; the Naamlijst of 1743 names preachers Jakob Wiebe and Abraham Wiebe, and Peter Wiebe (1758–before 1800): the earliest Wiebes on record in the Wiebe home congregation. 537 members in 1935. |
| Heubuden (II) | Three miles NW of Marienburg; the largest rural Mennonite congregation in East Germany (1,092 members in 1929, owning 25,000 acres); “ancestors almost exclusively Dutch immigrants”; Mennonite renters there by 1565. |
| Prangenau (IV) | Village in the Marienburg Werder near Neuteich, in the Ladekopp congregation’s area; late in receiving Mennonite settlers. |
| Am Trakt (IV) | Founded 1853 on the Volga (Samara) by Prussian Mennonites escaping the 1847 Prussian conscription law; 160 acres per family, 20 years’ exemption; ten villages by 1880. |
| Lysanderhöh (III, by C.K.) | Trakt village founded 1864; in 1897 22 farms, 119 people; part joined the 1891 trek to Turkestan, others emigrated to America. |
| Signau (IV) | Anabaptist from the start; a “formal hunt” for Anabaptists in the 1530s–60s; about five executed 1537–66 (Walti Gerber of Röthenbach, 1566); preacher Joseph Widmer captured there 1649. |
| Langnau (III) | Largest village in the canton; “always an Anabaptist center”; the oldest Mennonite congregation in the world. |
| Sonnenberg (IV) | Jura plateau near Tramelan; refuge for Emmental Anabaptists from the 1670s–90s and especially after 1700. |
| Montbéliard (III) | Refugees from Bern and from Markirch after Louis XIV’s 1712 expulsion; farmed the duke’s estates. |
| Markirch (III) | Anabaptists there by 1561. |
| Oak Grove, Smithville (IV) | “Probably the oldest Mennonite congregation of Amish background in Ohio”: settlers from Somerset and Mifflin Co., Pa. about 1817, congregation 1818, first meetinghouse 1862, Pleasant Hill 1881, present building 1905; independent since 1947. |
Record compiled 31 October 2026.
About this research
Supporting documentation is linked throughout. This project is an exercise in AI-assisted research and development, and I haven’t manually verified every link or conclusion. All transcriptions and translations of Swiss parish records were made with AI, and their accuracy should be treated accordingly.