GENEAL-FORUM

My great great grandparents, Kaspar Schroepfer, his wife Margaretha Karn and their children immigrated to the United States before 1850, settling in Davenport, Iowa. They were intermarried with the Koch family who are the subject of another post in this forum. At some point they returned to Switzerland for about one year, returning to Davenport on 5-2-1856 aboard the Saratoga. Other Schroepfers also lived in Davenport but exactly how they were related is a mystery. Not much is known about the family but I do have some information on descendants. Yost Schroepfer who may have been Kaspar’s brother, migrated to Minden, Iowa in the 1870s and lived near his daughter who was married to my great granduncle, Leonard Koch. I am interested in meeting Schroepfer descendants who live in Switzerland and learning more about the family. I look forward to future collaboration.
Thank you,
John Dooley

The official spelling in Switzerland will be Schröpfer. They hold citizenships in canton Graubünden only: since before 1800 in Flims, and since 1860 in Almens - the latter "under special statutory provisions". This term (in the middle of the 19th century) usually means that a family had not been resident in a given village for a longer time, and consequently no village really wanted them as citizens. Keep in mind that "citizenship" was the social security system of the time: if a person could not support itself any longer, the citizen community had to look after them. The system had been in existence e.g. in larger cities for centuries, but especially in some rural areas was introduced in the early 19th century - and many controversial cases were settled by courts only after 1850.

I recommend to contact the Graubünden State Archive and enquire whether any information on the Schröpfer emigrants is at their disposal.

I may be able to help you with information from Flims if you have some dates or about for Kaspar and Yost. Also it would be helpful if you know about when Kaspar married.

Bookey