Betschwanden Parish, Glarus, Switzerland Genealogy

Description: Guide to Betschwanden Parish, Glarus, Switzerland, ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, parish census, civil census, family history, area history, and military records.



Geography
Betschwanden is located on the east bank of the Linth river valley. Its elevation is 600 m (2,000 ft). To the north is the village of Diesbach. To the south is the village of Rüti. The mountain of Kärpf (2,794 m or 9,167 ft) is located above Betschwanden to the east.

Betschwanden has an area of 9.7 km² (3.7 square miles). The land use is divided up as follows:
 * 29.8% - forested
 * 36.0% - agricultural purposes
 * 1.1% - settled (buildings or roads)
 * 33.1% - non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains)

History
Betschwanden was first recorded as "Beswando" in 1240. It was part of the parish of Glarus until 1528 when it joined a Reformed parish, combined with Braunwald, Hätzingen, Diesbach and Rüti. The church in the village was built in the 14th century, and was rebuilt several times. The municipality of Betschwanden was combined into a new municipality called Glarus Süd on 1 January 2011.

Church Records
For the parish of Betschwanden, baptism records began in 1598, marriages in 1606, and burials in 1771. Information from the church records was extracted by Johann Jakob Kubly-Müller and organized into families. The Glarus Family Tree has made much of this data available online.

Original church records for Canton Glarus are only accessible at the Glarus State Archives.

Civil Registration
Civil registration began in 1849. Betschwanden belongs to the Glarus civil registration district. Records are only available in Switzerland. For further information, contact the civil registry office at:

Zivilstandskreis Glarus Postgasse 29 8750 Glarus Tel: +41 55 646 69 50 email: [mailto:zivilstandsamt@gl.ch zivilstandsamt@gl.ch]

Genealogies
(Click here for an article describing Swiss compiled genealogies.)

The Glarus Family Tree is a project which shows the family links between about 200 original families from Glarus. The source of most of this information is the 30-year, 36-volume genealogical masterpiece by Johann Jakob Kubly-Müller. The tree has more than 270,000 individuals can be found online at Geneal-Tree, MyHeritage, Geneanet, and Ancestry.

Related sources
In 2011, Canton Glarus was reorganized into three municipalities. Betschwanden is now part of the Glarus Süd municipality. The municipality website can be accessed here.

Libraries and archives
State Archives of Glarus