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Me along the drive to Solothurn

Since Susanne lives in Breitenbach, she picked me up at my hotel on Friday morning at 7:10. We met two of her sisters and Rolf in a parking lot in Busserach to continue the drive to Solothurn. Rolf thought it would be nice to drive instead of taking the train so that I could see more of the countryside. I am so glad he did! It was a beautiful drive, and Rolf is so knowledgeable that it was like having my own personal tour guide along while I was in Switzerland. The roads were very twisty as we made our way up through the passage in the hills. I kept thinking how much Jim would have enjoyed a motorcycle ride there.
Along the way we passed a home owned by an ancestral family named Altamatt (need to check my spelling on that one after I have a chance to review all the materials Rolf gave to me). They once had a mill here and the property is still in the family today.

Altamatt property

We arrived at the archives shortly after they opened. Here I am with my three Kubler cousins.

Rolf puts the sisters to work on Carolina Borer

The sisters worked on looking for passport information on Carolina Borer, wife of Vinzenz Josef Kubler. He had already located Vinzenz and their four boys, but not Carolina. As there is no death record for her here and I have found her, I believe, in a census record in the U.S., there should be a passport for her. In the meantime, he I and I went through the Busserach books looking for birth, marriage and death records for any Kubler. We found many, and photographed all of them. The archives closes for two hours at lunch, so we took a break and walked to a nearby restaurant. When we returned to the archives we spent another hour and a half or so photographing Inventories, which is what the town prepared when someone dies. Rolf also found the birth record of a Kubler from 1617, so we know they were in Busserach by that time period. Nothing new was found on Carolina however.

Two of the sisters then headed home while Susanne, Rolf and I toured a little of the town of Solothurn. It is the oldest town in Switzerland and has a lot of interesting buildings in the old town section. Here are a couple of the cathedrals.





On the ceiling of this cathedral is a painting of the Altamatt crest, which indicates that the family donated money during construction so that they could have this done. I am guessing it must have been a lot of money, and sometime it would be fun to research the records to learn about the construction of this cathedral.
Following the tour of town we drove back towards Busserach, and Rolf dropped Susanne and me off in a rural area where we met up with Josef Kubler. Rolf had to leave to finish up some things for the family gathering on Saturday and also to pick up his wife at the airport. Susanna, Joseph and I ate at a restaurant located in a farm house high in the hills. As we walked along the country road the sound of the cows grazing on the hillside was like a symphony of wind chimes.



We enjoyed a nice meal and then drove under a full moon on our way back to Busserach. From sun up to sun down, the day was filled with adventure.

I have been delayed in posting because I hit the ground running in Switzerland. My train trip from Boppard to Basel was uneventful except for a suicide attempt. While still in southern Germany the train came to a screeching halt, and I nervously looked around my train car. No one else seemed concerned so I thought it was a brake check or something. But then we just sat. Finally an announcement came on that there were "people on the tracks" and we had to wait for them to be moved. I wondered if a car had gotten stuck on the tracks. A little later another announcement was made that someone was trying to commit suicide by laying on the tracks, and they had to wait for the police to come. I guess the person went willingly because we were soon on our way again. All this delayed my arrival time in Basel where Rolf, as promised, was waiting at the top of the escalator with a Swiss flag. I waved my own American flag at him, and we quickly bought my ticket to Laufen. Back down the escalator we went only to see our train pulling out. Back up the escalator we headed with me dragging all my luggage once again. We went into a coffee shop for some coffee and tea. Rolf brought me up to date in the plans for the rest of that day, which was Thursday.

Gasthaus where Joseph Kubler sold his land

We caught the next train 30 minutes later and then got into his car which was parked at the Laufen train station. From there we drove directly to my hotel in Breitenbach, which I believe I have mentioned is the same hotel where my ancestor Joseph Kubler sold his house and land in February of 1854 to finance passage to America for his family. We barely made it in the door to drop my bag with the hotel owner and grab a key before Rolf whisked me off to Busserach, a short distance away. There we went to to the Catholic Church office to look at the old birth, death and marriage records. The office is only open on Thursdays so we needed to take advantage of that.

With the parish record books in Busserach

A Kubler entry

The secretary had laid out three books for us to look through. We photographed every Kubler entry that we found. We did not have too much time to dissect what we came across as there were many Kubler entries. We got short on time, so Rolf suggested we go through two additional books at a later time. From the office we went to Rolf's house where I had a chance to meet his two sons, but not his wife as she was away on holiday. Then Josef Kubler (call Sep in Switzerland for short, but never Joe) came to pick us up to take us to his sister Susanne's house for dinner. The two of them speak no English and I don't speak German so Rolf was kept busy translating the conversation. Susanne prepared raclette, a traditional Swiss dish. It was so good! I may have to see if I can find the machine in the U.S.

Joseph on the left with Rolf

Raclette

I got back to the hotel about 10:30 that evening to prepare for a big day at the Solothurn archives on Friday.