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Bishop Christian Burkholder and his Swiss Family (1) revises
the story of Christian Burkhalter (B576), an early, well known,
Mennonite bishop in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. These web pages
show two of the key, primary sources for this revised story and two of
the ancestral Burkhalter homes in Switzerland.
In 1754, when Bishop Christian was eight years old, he immigrated to
Pennsylvania with his widowed mother and five siblings. For
many years, he was believed to be the son of Christian Burkhalter of
Gerolsheim, Germany and the grandson of Mennonite minister Hans
Burkhalter. In 1759 this Christian of Gerolsheim, his wife Gertrude,
and their four children, were listed among the six Mennonite families
still living in Gerolsheim. Bishop Christian immigrated in 1754, and
his father died before the immigration. Therefore, he cannot be a son
of the Christian alive in Gerolsheim in 1759.
In 1980 Bishop Christian's Martyrs' Mirror was discovered after being
lost for more than a century. He had written his family record in this
book in his own hand, listing the names of his siblings and their
birth years. In the 1990s the names and ages in this family record
were matched with those in a 1745 census record found in
Switzerland. (1 p18)
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Matching these records on both sides of the Atlantic identifies this
Swiss family from La Heutte as the one into which
Bishop Christian was born.
The addenda on these web pages show the following:
- Photocopies of selected pages from the family record that Christian
wrote in his Martyrs' Mirror, including the names and birth years of
his siblings,
- A photocopy of the census record from 1745 in Switzerland that matches
the names and ages of Christian's siblings in his Martyrs' Mirror,
- A photocopy of the birth records of Christian's father Ulrich and
grandfather Benedict from the Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche at
Rüderswil,
- Photos of the Steinberg farm near the
Rüderswil church, which was home to three generations of
Burkhalters, Ulrich,
Benedict, and
Joseph.
- Photos of the Burkhalten farm near Rüegsbach,
where the Burkhalter name originated, and the nearby
Kirche Rüegsbach, with one of its stained glass windows
containing the Burkhalter Coat of Arms.
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