Any ideas why this happened? Germany to Switzerland

Question

My very German ancestors emigrated from Freiburg, Germany to just across the border (70 km) to Basal Switzerland in the mid to late 1600's. They only general theory I can come up with is religious persecution related to the thirty years war. Any other ideas or any clues about where to find any records, if there are any?

Answer 1

You must understand that back in the 1600's there were no iron clad boundaries. Germany was a loose confederation of various principalities and duchies and so really they did not consider themselves "German" but rather Badeners, Wuertemburgers, Prussians, Bavarians, etc. As for them moving, religion could be a reason. Also you must consider other possible reasons... a massive war is bad for business and bad for harvest. A move to a more peaceful location could solve those problems. My ancestors from my mothers side came from Freiburg as well, and in fact two of my great great grandfather's siblings lived in Zurich, Switzerland for a while. Believe it or not, Zurich, Switzerland is the closest sizable city for many parts of Freiburg, such as Konstanz. From the village my ancestors came from, Zurich is only 24 miles away. Europe is a very small place... we tend to think of countries in terms of Canada, the US and Mexico. All of Europe could fit within the continental US east of the Mississippi. Thats a small place.

Answer 2

Religion could be a reason. Freiburg was a catholic city while Basle was protestant. But this was the case since the first half of the 1500s.

During the thirty years (1618-1644) war Freiburg was invaded several times. Invasions often had severe effects on the  population of a city so maybe your ancestors were war refugees. (Altough you mentioned the second half of the 1600s and then the war was over)

Economic reasons could also be a possibility. Maybe there were just better conditions in Basle for a certain occupation.

Mariage could also be an option.

It will be hard to find records. You might find church records however these are not likely to document the reasons for the imigration. If you know the occupation of your ancestors you might search the records of the relevant guild in Basle. Maybe it would make sense to pay a history student from the Basle university to do some research for you.  

Answer 3

Well Freiburg was a small town, place of one of the worst witches hunt in 1599, then  ravaged as you say by the 30 years war, with a population of 14,000 at the beginning of the war reduced to 2,000 after the war, and various pillages by conquering Austrian, Spanish, French.

Basel was a peaceful, rich, multi religious and multi lingual free town: I will have escaped too