Plague, Reformation and the Peasants’ War: where the family stands

Christopher asked (2026-10-31) for the Black Death, the Reformation and the peasants’ wars on one timeline, set against the family lines.

How the family lines run through it

• The Black Death and the oldest record. Ramsei, the hamlet behind the Ramseyer name, appears in Bern charters from 1343 to 1369 (Fontes Rerum Bernensium - Ramsei mentions (1343-1369); Life at Ramsei and Burgdorf in 1343.pdf). The plague reached Bern in 1348–49, in the middle of that span, so the Ramsei families in those charters lived through it. With a third or more of the population dead, surviving labor became scarce and valuable; historians trace the Emmental’s long habit of peasant self-assertion to that shift.
• The Peasants’ War and Anabaptism, born in the same season. The first adult baptism in Zurich (1525 First adult baptisms in Zurich) came in January 1525, as the German Peasants’ War broke out. The peasants’ Twelve Articles asked that each congregation choose its own pastor, close to what the Anabaptists believed. After the peasants were massacred that May, the Swiss Brethren’s Schleitheim Confession (1527) renounced the sword. The authorities still saw Anabaptists as rebels; the drownings and beheadings followed.
• The Reformation made the Ramseyers traceable. Bern turned Reformed in 1528 (1528 Bern adopts the Reformation and outlaws Anabaptists), and the Lauperswil register (the parish containing Ramsei) begins that same year. The state church’s record-keeping is what lets the family be followed 14 generations. Peter Ramseyer (c.1534) falls in that register’s 1531–37 gap.
• Persecution next door. Bern’s last executed Anabaptist, Hans Haslibacher (1571), came from near Sumiswald, a few miles from Ramsei (1571 Last Anabaptist execution in Bern).
• 1653 in the Ramseyer heartland. The Swiss Peasants’ War centered on the Emmental and Entlebuch. Bern crushed it and tightened control of the countryside, Anabaptists included. Ulrich Ramseyer (17th c.) married at Eggiwil ten years later, in that climate; the pressure built to the Rhine deportations of 1711 (1711 The Rhine exodus from Bern).
• The Wiebe stream in parallel. Hoffman baptized at Emden in 1530 (1530 Melchior Hoffman baptizes at Emden); the Habsburgs persecuted the Low Countries; Danzig signed its first contract with Dutch drainage settlers in 1547; Wiebes appear near Danzig from 1612 (The Wiebe faith trail - Friesland to the Vistula). Same flight from persecution as the Swiss, but by ship to the Vistula instead of to the Jura and the Rhine.
• The Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) emptied the Palatinate and Hesse, which is why Swiss and Amish families, including the Miller side’s Hochstetler and Hessian Amish connections, were later invited there before moving on to Pennsylvania.

In short: the plague set up the peasants’ grievances, the grievances fed the Reformation’s radical wing, and that wing is this family. The persecution that followed kept both streams on the move for the next 200 years.

Notes on the chart

• Squares are family events; circles and bars are wider history. Filled squares are people in the tree; hollow squares share a surname or parish with the family but are not proven ancestors.
• Neuenschwander and Miller lanes added 2026-10-31: Uli Neuenschwander at the 1538 Bern disputation and the 1711 deportees (name matches); the Guggisberg Hostettlers of 1637–73, Jacob Hochstetler (c.1666) and Ulrich Mishler (1688). Uli Stauffer of Eggiwil, a 1653 ringleader, is a hollow mark on the Ramseyer lane. Details: 1528, 1653 and the Anabaptist files - family-name matches.
• Not every family mark is a proven link: Ulrich (1663) → Hans (1594) is a compiled lead, and the 1612 and 1640 Wiebes are not shown to be ancestors. See How far back each line goes and Wiebe before Prussia - names and faith networks.

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.