Countryside near Gondizwil, Switzerland
Bedinger Ancestors in Switzerland
Ancestors of the Bedinger family in America have been traced to two families in Switzerland in the sixteenth century. One is the family of Claus Biettinger of Gondizwil, Canton of Bern, Switzerland, the ancestor of Hans Adam Büdinger, founder of the Bedinger family in America. The other family is that of Hans Schonwalder of the Strenglebach area, Canton of Bern (now Aargau), Swtizerland near Zofingen. Hans Schonwalder is an ancestor of Jacob Mathias Showalter,the immigrant ancestor of our Showalter line in America. The descendant lines of Claus Biettinger and Hans Schonwalder merge in the sixth generation of the Bedinger family in America with the marriage of Singleton Berry Bedinger and Thelma Mae Showalter.
Ancestral families of both the Bedingers and the Showalters were members of the Mennonite faith in Switzerland. In Switzerland the state church was the Reformed Church. Mennonites of the Bern Canton were cruelly persecuted by the authorities for their religious beliefs and driven from the cities and forced to live in rural areas. Living in rural areas many of the Mennonites became farmers, some bred cattle and others became craftsmen and weavers. The Reformed clergy of Bern were horror stricken that the government authorities, Reformed churchmen themselves, would inflict such punishment as they did on the Mennonites.[i] Because of the intolerable treatment s as well as forced removals of Mennonites by the authorities, Mennonites were leaving Switzerland in mid-seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries. But, there were few hospitable or even tolerable places to move and re-settle was not an easy accomplishment.
Mennonite families were permitted in the Palatinate of Germany as early as 1664 under Elector Karl Ludwig. He gave this permission with a number of stipulations, however. The Mennonites were allowed to have meetings for worship, but not in public church buildings, and in no case could any such meeting be attended by more than twenty persons. The practice of baptism was forbidden the Mennonites. They were informed that they must furnish the authorities lists of the names of all members of their congregations and these lists must be revised as newcomers arrived. Every Mennonite family was under obligation to give three florins “protection money” the first year, and six florins annually thereafter to the authorities. These and various other restrictions imposed upon Mennonites show that they did not have the recognized rights of citizenship; they were merely tolerated on certain conditions.[ii]
Mennonite families were permitted in the Palatinate of Germany as early as 1664 under Elector Karl Ludwig. He gave this permission with a number of stipulations, however. The Mennonites were allowed to have meetings for worship, but not in public church buildings, and in no case could any such meeting be attended by more than twenty persons. The practice of baptism was forbidden the Mennonites. They were informed that they must furnish the authorities lists of the names of all members of their congregations and these lists must be revised as newcomers arrived. Every Mennonite family was under obligation to give three florins “protection money” the first year, and six florins annually thereafter to the authorities. These and various other restrictions imposed upon Mennonites show that they did not have the recognized rights of citizenship; they were merely tolerated on certain conditions.[ii]
Bedinger Line
The Bedinger family has been traced to Switzerland assisted by the discovery of records of the Bedingers in Alsace by Dr. Emmert F. Bittinger.[iii] The earliest known ancestor of the Bedinger line is Claus Biettinger, born about 1580 in Gondiswil, Switzerland. The descendant line from Claus Biettinger to Hans Adam Büdinger, our immigrant ancestor, is given in the Genealogy section of this website. It is believed that in Alsace the Bedingers were members of the Lutheran faith.
Showalter Line
The earliest known ancestor of the Showalter line is Hans Schonwalder, known in 1566 to be in the Strengelbach area in the Canton of Bern, now Aargau, Switzerland near Zofingen, half way between Luzern and Basel. According to Heinrich Fehr, a "schonwalder" is a man who lives in a protected forest, that is, a forest which is not cut for wood or timber but is protected so as to act as a barrier to catch and hold the snow in case of an avalanche.[iv]
Jacob Mathias Schowalder, the immigrant and founder of the Showalter family in America was born about 1694 in Schafbusch,a Mennonite commune near Wissembourg, Alsace, France. The Schowalder family had been expelled from Zofingen, Switzerland about 1671 and removed to the Wissembourg area of Alsace-Lorraine, France. The Schowalders settled on a large farm called Schafbusch two miles east of Wissembourg, Alsace. They were tenant farmers. The Catholic land owners knew from experience that these Mennonites industriously performed their labors and promptly paid their tithes.[i]
The descendant line from Hans Schonwalder to Jacob Mathias Schowalter is given by research of the Rev. Paul Schowalter which has been translated into English by Richard L. Showalter.[ii]
The descendant line from Hans Schonwalder to Jacob Mathias Schowalter is given by research of the Rev. Paul Schowalter which has been translated into English by Richard L. Showalter.[ii]
The immigration of the Bedingers and Showalters of Alsace and the von Schlegels of Saxony to Pennsylvania can be followed on the page: German Pioneers in Pennsylvania
Sources:
[i] Frank Eshleman, 1917, "Historic background and annals of the Swiss and German pioneer settlers of southeastern Pennsylvania, and of their remote ancestors, from the middle of the dark ages, down to the time of the revolutionary war; an authentic history, from original sources ... with particular reference to the German-Swiss Mennonites or Anabaptists, the Amish and other nonresistant sects", Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
https://archive.org/stream/historicbackgrou01eshl/historicbackgrou01eshl_djvu.txt
[ii] Rev. Paul Schowalter, 1979, Genealogical Book of the Showalter Family, in A Showalter Lineage from Switzerland in 1566 to Alsace, France, to Rhineland-Pfalz, Germany to Ohio, U. S. A.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bart/Showalter.htm
[iii] Bittinger, Emmert F., 1983, The Bittinger Church Records of Ottwiller and Durstel. <Ancestral Villages in Alsace>
[iv] Fehr is quoted in Showalter, Rev. Paul, 1979, A Showalter Lineage from Switzerland in 1566 to Alsace, France, to Rhineland-Pfalz, Germany to Ohio, U. S. A., translated to English by Richard L. Showalter.
https://archive.org/stream/historicbackgrou01eshl/historicbackgrou01eshl_djvu.txt
[ii] Rev. Paul Schowalter, 1979, Genealogical Book of the Showalter Family, in A Showalter Lineage from Switzerland in 1566 to Alsace, France, to Rhineland-Pfalz, Germany to Ohio, U. S. A.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bart/Showalter.htm
[iii] Bittinger, Emmert F., 1983, The Bittinger Church Records of Ottwiller and Durstel. <Ancestral Villages in Alsace>
[iv] Fehr is quoted in Showalter, Rev. Paul, 1979, A Showalter Lineage from Switzerland in 1566 to Alsace, France, to Rhineland-Pfalz, Germany to Ohio, U. S. A., translated to English by Richard L. Showalter.