The Six Zweifel Brothers (1) - Glarus

Part 1 - From Switzerland

One of my ancestral lines is the Zweifel family from Linthal in Canton Glarus, Switzerland. When my Great Great Grandfather, Frederick Roth, came to America in about 1880, he would be settling in an area already populated by many from his home land. Soon he was married to Maria (or Mary) Zweifel. While he had just arrived in this new land, she was born here and grew-up in post Civil War America.

In 1853 and 1854, six brothers, at least one of which had a family, came to the United States and settled in New Glarus, Wisconsin. They hailed from "old" Glarus, a province in Switzerland and were part of a greater migration that created a "Swiss Colony" in America. These Swiss immigrants had many similarities to other European groups that came over but the way they did it, as an organized operation, was not so common.

The Port of Le Havre, France in 1841. Le Havre was an important emigration
port for Germans coming to America. Over 1/2 million German immigrants
sailed from Le Havre in the 19th Century with most landing in New York.
Some of the Zweifel brothers came through Le Havre.

Apollas Holcombe - Short Biography

Apollas Holcombe - Patriot and Pioneer

Apollas Holcombe was born in 1791 in Salmon Brook, Granby, Connecticut. He was one of six known children, all boys, of Micha Holcombe and Hannah Hayes. Micha, a Revolutionary War veteran, was the son of Joseph Holcombe and descendant of a puritan colonist named Thomas Holcombe who came to the new world around 1630.

Apollas Holcombe was born in Granby, Connecticut. Originally called Salmon Brook, this
was the home of five generations in this line of the Holcombe family. Located in north
central Connecticut, the area between the branches of the small stream called Salmon
Brook is still home to many Holcombe descendants from other lines of the family.

A Big Peterson Family Reunion

Finding New Sources, the Website Helps!

I do not get a lot of comments or even that much traffic to this site but that does not mean that having the website has not paid-off. In fact, I have received a number of high quality contacts who stumbled onto this blog and realized a connection. The most significant of these has been on the Peterson/Moe side of my family. A few months ago, not long after I posted: Peterson - Moe . . . What's in a Name?, I was contacted by three different individuals on that side of the family, including one from Norway. That was really exciting for me.



Peterson, Moe and others families gather at Wisconsin Dells in 2011.
They brought with them a wealth of resources to share.