Occurrences in Switzerland

The earliest Occurrence of the family name Guggenbül in Switzerland known so far is from 1345. The Zürcher Studentenamts-Urbar contains a copy of a deed from St. Mattews Day of that year (February 24^th) that transfers some rights on a mill in Uetikon on Lake Zurich. This mill is described as adjoined to "Guggenbül's Hube". A hube was a piece of land assigned to a family when some area was colonized.

It is not clear where "Guggenbül's Hube" was situated in Uetikon. If it had the usual size of a Franconian Königshube, which was 48 ha, it might have been situated between Kreuzsteinstraße in the west towards Zürich, the Alte Landstraße in the south towards the lake, in the east towards Männedorf from the Grenzbach up to the crossing of Kleindorfstraße and Talstraße and in the north along Talstraße until Alten-Berg-Straße (see figure on the side). Even today there is a site called "Hueb" within this area. However, the Holy Roman Empire, to which Uetikon still belonged in those days, did also know about half hubes ("Großhufen"), quarter hubes ("Landhufen") and eighth hubes ("Kleinhufen"). Some later deeds still mention a "Huob" in Uetikon, but in no connection to the Guggenbül family.^[1] In later years some family members lived in the neighbourhood called Langenbaum.^[2]

It is also not clear, where the Guggenbül family from Uetikon came from, from which hill it took its name and if it is related to the Guckenbühl family in the Baar. It is well known that there were relations between Baar and the Zurich area, since the Order of Saint John as well as the Lords of Tengen had estates in both areas [Lambrecht 1991], [Schoch 1974]. On the other hand, [Frick 1935] reports on p. 235 that the Guggenbül family from Uetikon had the byname "Cluser". As a possible explanation he states, that before moving to Uetikon they might had lived originated in the "Kluse", which at that time was a settlement between Hottingen and Hirslanden. The Klusplatz in Zurich still reminds of that settlement.

Until now Heini Guggenbül is the first member of the Guggenbül family from Uetikon that we know of. In January 1385 he cultivated a vineyard owned by someone else (StAZ, C II 12, Nr. 221). The Studentenamts-Urbar mentions Hanns and Jörg Guggenbül with their families on the same page that gives the deed mentioned above and on the page before that; but it is not clear, if these deeds belong to the same year 1345, since the Urbar was prepared in the 16^th century and orders deeds not chronologically, but according to the areas they concern.

An important year for the Guggenbüls from Uetikon was 1408, when many serfs of the Order of Saint John, the Lords of Hünenberg, Einsiedeln Abbey and Fraumünsterabtei Zürich where relieved from serfdom. The circumstances are interesting. Between 1287 and 1348 the commandery of the Order of St. John at Wädenswil had acquired the estates and low level jurisdiction in Uetikon, mostly from the Lords of Hünenberg. But Einsiedeln Abbey and Fraumünsterabtei Zürich still had many estates and serfs in the same area. They also appointed bailiffs to manage these estates and people and to act for monastery and abbey in secular business. Since the competences of the bailiffs and the Order of St. John were not clearly separated, quite a lot of legal uncertainties came up in everyday life. This was even further complicated by the different rules that hold for the serfs of the Order, of Hünenberg, of Einsiedeln and of Fraumünster.

With the contract of 1408 the commandery of the Order of St. John at Wädenswil acquired the bailiffship for the estates of Einsiedeln Abbey and Fraumünsterabtei Zürich in their area. However, the money for this acquisition did not came from the Order, but from the serfs. In return they were relieved from serfdom (although they still had to provide certain compulsory services). In this way the commandery of the Order of St. John unified the legal state of all its citizens.

Among the relieved serfs mentioned in the contract there are two groups of people named Guggenbül.^[3]. The first group consists of Johann Guggenbül the Elder, his wife and his child, Johann Guggenbül the Younger and his wife, Elspeta Margareta Mechtlin (?) and Elsbeta die Gugenbülin. Some fifty lines below the contract lists again Elspeta Margareta Mechtlin (?) and Elsbeta die Gugenbülin, now called sisters, then Rudolf Guggenbül, his wife, his child and his mother, and the brothers Heinrich and Hans Guggenbül.

It is quite possible that both groups of Guggenbül lived in different villages. For the tax records of Zurich from the XIV. and XV. century do not only mention the family line at Uetikon, but also a couple of households named Guggenbül in the north and northwest of Zurich:

At that time Birmenstorf, Wollishofen and Unterstrass were villages outside Zurich, in the meantime the latter two became suburbs. Münsterhof and Auf Dorff were (and still are) areas in the Zurich city center. "Honrein" is the old name of Hohenrain in the canton of Luzern, which also had a commandery of the Order of St. John. If and how this group of Guggenbül is related to the family at Uetikon is still unclear.

How the Guggenbül from Uetikon spread to Meilen and Küsnacht, even to Alsace, and how this lead farmers and winegrowers from Uetikon to become mariners in Meilen and millers, butchers or innkeepers in Küsnacht was explored by Gertrud Guggenbühl and more recently by Doris Guggenbühl. Gertrud published her results on her own ([Guggenbühl 1976a]). Doris provided copies of the deeds from the Staatsarchiv Zürich and prepared a list of the known members of the Swiss line of the Guggenbül family. She may be contacted by email to "".

Links:

• Gertrud Guggenbühl: Chronik der Familie Guggenbühl (5,2 MB)
• Homepage of Uetikon am See

1. ↑Deed C II 18, Nr. 608 in the Zurich state archives from 1408 states, that the brothers Rudolf, Hans, Jacob and Herman the Bueleren from Baden own the farm called "Huob" as a fief. Deed G I 187 (fol. 7 r-v) from 1436 reports that Hans and Henssli Singer from Uetikon got the Singer farm in Uetikon in the Huob as a fief.
2. ↑ I imagine: The dwellings where those Guggenbül family members lived were removed in 1634 to build Langenbaum manor. In that house Max Frisch and Ingeborg Bachmann had a secondary residence from 1959 to 1963.
3. ↑ The Zurich state archive has two versions of the contract: C I, Nr. 2821 and C I, Nr. 2843, which is more readable.