I recently visited Langnau, Bern, Switzerland and spent two days immersing myself in all things Langenegger. My wife and I arrived at the Langnau train station on June 25, 2004, exhausted from a long flight from San Francisco. As we walked out of the train station, we were struck by the unique character of this area.
Outside the train station are the remains of a cobbled street, now patched with asphalt. Everywhere we looked there were beautiful Swiss houses and buildings, many hundreds of years old, and all colorfully decorated with pink and red begonias placed in planters under every window. As we found out later, the Emmental is also a wonderland of covered bridges, friendly people, church spiers with Swiss clocks and bells, the tinkling of cow bells: everything you expect Switzerland to be. .
As we walked to our hotel in Bareau, we noticed how friendly and courteous the locals are, stopping to allow us to cross the street and smiling as we passed with a friendly “Hello” or “Guten Morgen.” The city is dotted with long stone tanks filled with well water that splashes at one end and drains at the other. They look something like a stone horse tank. These are available to anyone who wants a cool drink of well water.
After settling into our room at the Landgasthof Hotel Adler, the owner kindly invited us for a short walk through the countryside, where we saw more beautiful houses and pastures. After we got back, we asked some locals in the hotel restaurant about the Langenegger farm and they had a good laugh. Turns out there are a lot of Langenegger there and we didn’t know the name of the people who lived in the original house we came to see.
The hills are about 1,200 feet above the valley floor and are incredibly green with grass and wooded areas visible from anywhere in the city. Langnau is small, maybe three or four blocks long, and the hills seem very close. The black and white cows break through the vegetation and make a wonderful tinkling sound as they graze by ringing the bells around their necks. The higher-pitched cowbells used by sheep and goats mix with the clunk-clunk bong-bong of cowbells, creating a delightful backdrop to the landscape. This is the last sound we hear when we fall asleep covered in a down comforter on our first night in Langnau.
The birds woke us up to the wonderful green world that is Langnau in the summer. We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast of homemade bread and jam provided by our host, Stephen. We were hoping to attend church, but discovered that our information was incorrect and we arrived too early. Instead, we started our walking tour of Langnau early. Langnau is a small town and we walked through all the main streets around noon when we broke for lunch to share a small cheesecake and apple pie from a small shop near the center of town. At that time, the local museum had opened. It is located in one of the oldest houses in Langnau and is a great opportunity to look inside one of these magnificent buildings and see all the fancy woodwork done by the builders. It is also a large museum with a number of permanent and rotating exhibits describing the history of Langnau and its residents.
The museum docent has lived in Langnau for 70 years and knows the name Langenegger very well. He quickly found a book containing the emblems of the Langenegger family, one for those of the valley (Langenegg Ey) and one for those of the hills (Langenegg Unter). He also loosely parsed the name into Lange (Long in English, pronounced ‘Long’ in German as well) and negg (hill in English, pronounced ‘neck’ in German). I haven’t been able to confirm the word ‘negg’ anywhere, but that’s what she said. The book also included a statement, “Ulrich, von Langnau, wanderte 1748 nach Pennsylvanian [USA] Aus (Faust 61)”, which roughly translates to Ulrich Langenegger emigrating to Pennsylvania in the United States in 1748. This is our ancestor Ulrich Langenegger Sr. The book provides no further sources for this information. On the map, Langenegg Unter is about a 30 minute uphill walk from the museum and Langenegg Ey is a mile downriver from Langnau.Since the Unter had been owned by someone other than Langenegger for many years we decided to take a closer look at the Ey property in the valley to see if we could at least get a picture of the house and maybe, if we were really lucky, meet a distant relative.
Margaret and I walked along the river where many of the locals were taking a break from normal life to cool off. We were pleasantly surprised by the number of covered bridges in and around Langnau, all still in use. We even ran over one on the outskirts of Langnau.
Just as we were approaching the long driveway to Langenegger’s house, two women came up from the river and one of them spoke English. She told us that we were in the right place and that the Langenegger family lived here. She offered to walk us to the correct house among a group of various houses and buildings located on the property. With a cheery German “Woo hoo,” she called out to the people inside and introduced us to my ninth cousin who lives in the house where Ulrich Langenegger Senior was born in 1664 (the same one mentioned in the book who emigrated to Pennsylvania).
Our newly found cousins were friendly and warm to us even though we just showed up at their door after over 250 years without a Christmas card! We had a short conversation about the family and looked at some of the information they had there. Coincidentally, the sister-in-law of the couple next door was in Pennsylvania for a Longenecker meeting while we were in Langnau. We exchange contact information so we can follow up with them with information we find that might be helpful to them. They kindly offered us a cool drink from their well before taking a little walk around the farm to take some photos. The cows were in the barn because it was unusually hot that day. The milk from their cows is sold to a cooperative of local farmers who turn it into cheese. If you’re looking for authentic Langenegger cheese, look for the Emmentaler type as that’s what they make there. It is sold in the US simply as Swiss cheese, the kind with holes in it. I must admit that it tasted much better in Langnau than in California.
The house is an easy walk along the river from Langnau and consists of the original house plus some additional houses and outbuildings. I found the house a challenge to photograph on its own. It is a typical Swiss country house arranged with dwellings and barn under one roof. On one side is a dirt ramp that goes directly to the attic above the barn that is used to move hay into that area for storage and winter use.
The roof is steep by US standards, but not as steep as I expected in an area that gets a lot of snow. Most of the roofs in the area are tiled and include a series of corbels about six inches high that hold down snow in winter so it doesn’t all fall at once. Some buildings had a simpler system with just a set of brackets near the bottom of the roof that supported a four-inch tube that ran the entire length of the house, apparently serving the same purpose as the brackets on other buildings. Also, this system probably uses snow to insulate the roof from the cold. Another interesting thing about some roofs and houses: Builders sometimes put their initials and construction date on the roof using different colored shingles. Others painted this information under the eaves or on the face of the building below the eaves.
Langenegger’s home isn’t as lavish as some in the city, but it’s large and includes some fancy woodwork that we saw repeated inside the museum, on the covered bridges, and elsewhere in the area. The main structure appears to be large beams carefully attached at the right angles so that they get stronger as more weight is put on them, and are held together with wooden dowels. On a bridge near the city we saw metal strapping that appears to have been added later.
The farm business is focused on dairy cows. There was a large field of corn planted near the house along with a well kept garden which seems to adorn every house we saw in Switzerland. Along the access road to the farm there are some cherry trees with mostly green fruit that are starting to turn pink in places. The rest of the farm seemed to be overgrown with grass. My friend John Garland in Oklahoma would call fencing “psychological fencing” – not much of a barrier to an animal wanting to get out. We noticed that many fences appeared to be temporary and electrified so the cows could be easily moved to fresh pasture as needed. We even saw an electric fence connected to a solar panel high in the mountains, a long train ride from Langnau. Out of respect for the time and space of the current occupants, we only stayed briefly.
We return to our hotel along a path that runs alongside the river and stop to rest in the shade of an old covered bridge. We were exhausted again and happy to meet our distant relatives and see the old house.
Research: If you are researching this area, there is no genealogical information available in Langnau. The records office has records going back to 1886, but does not publish them without the permission of the people named in the records, and the charges for doing so are very high. You will have much better luck in Bern, where most of the Swiss records are held. There is almost always someone around who speaks English, and registry offices are no exception. The records are not computerized or indexed, but are very clearly categorized by location and time frames. You’ll need to tell them exactly who, where and when you want to look to get the right microfilm. So it’s an old-fashioned search, flipping through records written long ago using unknown fonts and styles. The lockers are located outside the office in the hallway and you will need to leave your backpack, purse, etc. there. It’s free and safe.
The Bern State Archives is located at Falkenplatz 4, CH-3012 Bern, near the main train station. It was easy to find the third time I tried. The train station is large and busy and has several levels. Locate the elevators at one end of the station and take them to the top. If you’re having trouble, follow the students and signs to the university to find the elevators. Once you’re at the top, head towards campus, the only way you can really go, and pass between two large university-like buildings. Falkenplatz 4 is the first building on the right after passing through the campus area. There is a small street stall just across the small park where students gather for a cheap and good sandwich – get there early as they run out of sandwiches quickly after noon. The office is open from 8:00 to 12:00 and from 1:00 to 5:00 every day of the week except Fridays when it closes at 4:30. If you want to confirm before you go, their phone numbers are 031/633 51 01, fax 031/633 51 02. Copies cost one Swiss franc per page, so bring enough cash so you can get everything you want. You can easily spend 50 francs in an afternoon depending on the records you want. I didn’t have time, but you might also want to check out these sources provided by the museum in Langnau. . .
Zivilstands-und Burgerrechtsdienst
Cantons Bern
Eigerstraße 73
3011 Bern
031/633 47 85
Fax: 031/633 47 39
Nieisen Paul-Anthon
Biochstraße 7
3753 Oberhofen am Thunersee
033/243 24 52
