Julius Billeter

Julius Billeter, July 1899, Salt Lake City, Utah

Julius Billeter junior (born October 14, 1869 in Igis GR; † July 9, 1957 St. Gallen ) was a Swiss genealogist .

Life

Billeter was the second of ten children and the eldest son of Julius Billeter senior (1842–1922) and Barbara Billeter b. Doubt (1843–1930) was born. Barbara Doubt Billeter had been baptized early as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ( Mormons ); her husband did not become a Mormon until 1882. But six weeks before his baptism, the 12-year-old son Julius emigrated to Utah under the care of a returning missionary, Ulrich Stauffer (1838–1905) .

Emigration to the USA

In the Mormon state, Billeter first settled with the Stauffer family in the small town of Willard , Box Elder County, where he worked on the farm. In 1883 he moved to Salt Lake City , where he learned the trade of a carpenter. In the fall of 1884, the Billeter-Zweifel family arrived in Utah from Switzerland .

On June 24, 1891, Julius Billeter married Marie Emilie Wilker (1873–1951), whom he had already met on the ship of his emigration trip, in the Logan Utah Temple of the Faithful Community. They became parents of two daughters and three sons.

Return to Switzerland

Less than four weeks after the birth of his first daughter, Billeter returned to his native country in 1892 and served as a preaching missionary in Switzerland and Germany for two years . His wife moved with their daughter to Paris, Bear Lake County , Idaho , where they lived with their widowed mother and grandmother Maria Emilie Künzlin Wilker (1842–1930).

In the spring of 1894, Billeter began to conduct intensive family research in order to be able to take the lists of names with him when he returned to America. His goal gradually became clear: to devote himself to genealogy for the Mormons. The religious community has special temples built in which they perform sacred rites. In order to be able to do such for the dead, the deceased must be identified, which is why the Mormons diligently do family research.

Back to the USA

When Billeter returned to Utah in July 1894, the Salt Lake Temple , dedicated in April 1893 , which was built in the neo-Gothic style according to plans by the church architect Truman Osborn Angell (1810-1887), was in operation. Emilie Wilker Billeter, who had started her own dressmaker in Paris ( Idaho ), moved back to Salt Lake City with her daughter and the young Billeter family was reunited.

In November 1894, the Genealogical Society of Utah was founded by the church leadership in order, among other things, to be able to better help the faithful to get the names of their deceased from their respective countries of origin. Co-founder Billeter became a member of the new society for life.

As a member of this society, Billeter felt better able to achieve his goal. His basic suggestion was that he undertake family research on site in Switzerland and southern Germany . He received support from Richard Theodor Haag (1867–1947), a Stuttgart-born professor at the then Latter-day Saints' College in Salt Lake City. Gradually they were supported by other church leaders and ultimately by the First Presidency of the Church.

The Salt Lake Observer , a German-language weekly newspaper in Salt Lake City at the time, reported on January 24, 1896 about the plans of the “[…] carefully developed plans of the brothers [which] are supported by the church leadership. [...] Interested parties who want master lists from Switzerland and southern Germany will be helped with an advance payment of $ 5 per name list ”. Shortly afterwards Billeter went to some communities south of the capital for two weeks to collect further orders.

Second mission in Switzerland

In April 1896 Billeter left Salt Lake City to serve a second mission in Switzerland and southern Germany. This time, however, the main goal was to do the necessary family research to produce master lists. He took up residence with another missionary in Burgdorf , but decided to tackle the Bernese Oberland as his first research area. Day after day he researched the parish registers and civil registers ; if at all possible he stayed in a village or town for three or four days. Various place names are mentioned in his letters: Lauterbrunnen , Zweilütschinen , Lütschental , Burglauenen , Grindelwald , Interlaken and Unterseen , but also Zweisimmen and Erlenbach in the Simmental as well as Rüegsau , Huttwil , Kallnach , Brüttelen , Erlach , Biel etc.

Return to Utah

Billeter returned from this mission in May 1897. The Deseret Evening News reported on his great success: he had noted more than 100,000 names from the old registers for his master lists. His wife returned to Salt Lake City for the second time from Paris, Idaho, this time with their two daughters. During Billeter's stay in Switzerland, Haag accepted an appointment at the Weber Stake Academy in Ogden , Utah , which is why he moved from the Mormon capital.

In order to better coordinate his joint work with Haag, Billeter and his family have moved to Ogden; there his wife opened a workshop for ladies' tailoring in the main street of the city. During the change of location in August 1897, the two daughters were with their grandmother in Paris (Idaho). While playing on stacked tree trunks, the daughter, who was not yet two years old, fell down and died in December 1898 as a result of a punctured lung.

Billeter worked diligently to compile his master lists. The separation of the “ Swiss-German Mission ” was decided by the church leadership at the beginning of 1898: the headquarters of the new German Mission became Hamburg , where the editorial office of the German-speaking church organ, Der Stern , was relocated; Bern remained the seat of the Swiss mission.

As early as mid-February, the Deseret Semi-weekly News published an announcement by the Genealogical Society of Utah , signed by its president - Apostle Franklin D. Richards (1821–1899) - that a preliminary agreement had been made with Billeter, and another To undertake a family research mission in Switzerland and southern Germany. A month later the church leadership announced that Haag had been called to serve as a translator to Hamburg on a mission; he left Utah just a few weeks later. A few days after his departure, the Billeter family also moved away from Ogden and settled again in Salt Lake City.

Third stay in Switzerland

In June the newspaper reported that Billeter was expected to return to German-speaking Europe on a new mission in the fall of 1898. For whatever reason, his departure was delayed by several months.

In July 1899 he said goodbye to his family for the third time because of a missionary call. The Millennial Star , the Church's press in England , published on August 10th that Billeter "[...] had arrived as an agent of the Genealogical Society of Utah" and was primarily pursuing his family research responsibilities in German-speaking Europe.

Billeter lived in Veltheim near Winterthur . His wife and older surviving daughter followed in late November 1900. He started working as a genealogist at the beginning of the 20th century at the latest.

As early as 1903/04, Susanna Klossner Herzog (1834–1906) commissioned Billeter to compile master lists of her parents' families Klossner and Wampfler von Diemtigen BE. Shortly after receiving the genealogies of these families, she had the first names listed therein edited for temple ordinances in the Logan Utah temple .

The three sons of the Billeter-Wilker family were born between July 1903 and April 1909. On June 7, 1909, Ezra Louie Kunz (1887–1985) wrote the following in his diary immediately before his release as a missionary: “I spent the day mainly at Billeters [in Winterthur], [and] talked about genealogy”.

The next few years were successful for Billeter. His work has enabled many more sacred ordinances to be performed in the Mormon temples.

Return to Salt Lake City

But communication, which was restricted during the war years and later broken off, was particularly difficult. With the help of the Church, the Billeter family of six were passengers on one of the first ships to sail after the Compiègne Armistice of November 11, 1918, and returned to Utah .

Soon, however, numerous Swiss descendants of previously emigrated Mormons realized that they could no longer receive genealogical data as a result of Billeter's return to the States. Several people offered Billeter substantial advance payments in the hope that he would return to Europe.

Another mission in Switzerland

In November 1921, Billeter and his wife accepted the church calling for a new "genealogical mission". They returned to Switzerland and settled in the city of St. Gallen.

When the Swiss Society for Family Research was founded in September 1933, Billeter was one of the founding members. At the first general meeting, Billeter, who was almost 64 years old, spoke and encouraged the younger crowd to do their part.

After World War II, Billeters returned to Salt Lake City in 1945. But Emilie Billeter had difficulties with post-war America and was longing for the Swiss mountains and the “Swiss way of life”. In 1946, 78-year-old Billeter returned to Switzerland with his wife and resumed family research.

Emilie Wilker Billeter died in St. Gallen in September 1951. Julius Billeter continued his research, together with Rosa Holzer (1897–1979), his secretary for more than 25 years. A stroke threw him back and he died in St. Gallen in July 1957.

Other Mormon genealogists worked in the Billeter tradition for their co-religionists, such as Ernst Arm (1909–1982), Alfred Friedrich Reichen (1897–1985) and Friedrich Julius Wysard (1896–1973).

Despite the benevolent obituary from Robert Georg Oehler - who was responsible for the first edition of the family name book in Switzerland and worked in the Swiss National Library from 1932 - Julius Billeter's genealogical research results must be viewed critically.

literature

• Julius Caesar Billeter: Julius Billeter, Pioneer Swiss Genealogist: A Man of Faith and Action, Salt Lake City, 1980.
• Manuel Aicher: The genealogist Julius Billeter and the reliability of his work , in: Archive for Family History Research , 2nd year, issue 1, March 1998.
• Paul-Anthon Nielson: Observations on the Swiss Genealogical Research of Julius Billeter in Comparison with Original Bernese Vital Records, in: Genealogica & Heraldica Copenhagen 1980 .
• Robert Oehler: Obituary, Julius Billeter , Der Schweizer Familienforscher, Vol. 24, 1957, pp. 102-103

Web links

• Literature by Julius Billeter in the Worldcat library catalog: Link

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Swiss Center ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Anne-Marie Dubler : Genealogy. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
3. ^ Julius Caesar Billeter: Julius Billeter, Pioneer Swiss Genealogist: A Man of Faith and Action, Salt Lake City, 1980, 8-12.
4. ^ According to the Mormons' own account; Receipt.
5. ↑ Julius Caesar Billeter: "Julius Billeter - Genealogist", The Instructor , Vol. 101, No. 7, July 1966, 280ff.
6. ^ Billeter: Pioneer Swiss Genealogist , 16-23
7. ^ Billeter: Pioneer Swiss Genealogist , 24-28.
8. ^ To supplement the communication that Billeter did "extensive family research" only from 1910; on-line
9. ↑ These names were used a few years before 1910 - d. H. not "since 1910" - done in Logan. on-line
10. ^ Mission diary of Ezra Louie Kunz, privately owned. His great-grandmother, Rosina Katharina Klossner Kunz (1802-1883), was a cousin of Susanna Klossner Herzog. On the occasion of the founding of the family organization Kunz on September 5, 1909 in Bern, Bear Lake County, Idaho, Kunz was installed as secretary and quaestor of the organization. In that first meeting it was decided to commission Billeter to compile the genealogies of the Kunz, Knutti and Mani von Diemtigen families. ("Minutes of the first meeting of the Kunz family organization", privately owned. The completion of the tribe lists of the three families was dated Billeter in February 1912. [Family History Library, Salt Lake City, microfilm no. 127997])
11. ↑ One of Billeter's sons visited all of the temple presidents from Cardston, Canada in the north to Mesa, Arizona in the south. They all confirmed to him that without the father's work, they would have been forced to close the temple more than once because there were too few names to process. Billeter: Pioneer Swiss Genealogist , Dec.
12. ^ Billeter: Pioneer Swiss Genealogist , 28-29.
13. ↑ Billeter: Pioneer Swiss Genealogist , 30. The newspaper report "Gold Wedding To Be Noted - Julius Billeter Couple Will Be Felicitated", The Deseret News , Salt Lake City, June 23, 1941, erroneously states the year of return as 1922. on-line
14. ↑ “'Julius Billeter 1869 - 1957', an obituary by Dr. phil. Robert [Georg] Oehler [1897-1983], genealogist in Gümligen near Bern ”, Der Schweizerische Familienforscher , Jg. 24 (1957), 102-103.
15. ^ Billeter, Pioneer Swiss Genealogist , 28-30.
16. ↑ Manuel Aicher: The genealogist Julius Billeter and the reliability of his work , in: Archive for Family History Research, 2nd year, Issue 1, March 1998, 32–47; and Paul-Anthon Nielson: Observations on the Swiss Genealogical Research of Julius Billeter in Comparison with Original Bernese Vital Records , in: Genealogica & Heraldica Copenhagen 1980 , 233-240.