By Don Taylor
Darling-Huber Line #14

Vital Facts at a Glance

Introduction

John Huber is my wife Mary-Alice’s great-grandfather — Ancestor #14 in the Darling-Huber line. He was born Johann Huber in the small Swiss village of Windlach, in the Canton of Zürich, in 1880. In 1901, John left his family in Switzerland “in a huff,” leaving his inheritance in the Swiss farm. He crossed the Atlantic and eventually became a Michigan farmer whose daughter, Florence, carried his legacy forward to the Darling family.

I have written about John before — first in 2014 as part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge and again in 2024 in a revised sketch. Each time, I have found new details that change or enrich the picture. Now, a newly examined Swiss Familienregister entry for his parents — Johann Jakob Huber and Katharina Nüsslingen — offers the most detailed view yet of the family John left behind when he boarded a ship for America.

A Swiss Farming Family: The Pfeinclauf Register

The document now in hand is a page from a Swiss Familienregister — a church-civil family register of the type kept by Reformed and Lutheran parishes throughout Switzerland and the German-speaking borderlands. The heading reads: Familie des Joh. Jak. Huber, Landwirth, von Pfeinclauf (Nr. 1486) — in English, ‘Family of Johann Jakob Huber, Farmer, from Pfeinclauf, Register Number 1486.’ This is the family record of John’s parents.

John’s father, Johann Jakob Huber, was born on 5 February 1850 and is described in the register as a Landwirth — a farmer, specifically one who owned and worked his own land. He married Katharina Nüsslingen on 19 March 1877 and died on 8 December 1926. Katharina, born 10 October 1857, outlived her husband by more than fourteen years, dying 10 January 1941 at approximately eighty-three years of age.

The register cross-references the family to Volume 168 of the broader register series, and the children’s own family records are noted in Volume IV at various page numbers — a useful trail for further research.

John’s Siblings: A Family in Full

The register records seven children of Johann Jakob and Katharina. John — listed as ‘Johann’ — was the third child. I had previously believed he had four siblings: Ernie, Hermann, Frieda, and Alfred. The register now corrects and greatly expands that picture.

The first child listed is a Jakob, born 24 July 1878 and baptized 7 August 1878. He died on 13 September 1878, at just seven weeks of age. The loss of a newborn was tragically common in the nineteenth century, and the family’s response was characteristic of the era: the very next son, born 30 July 1879, was also named Jakob. This second Jakob, who survived, was confirmed in 1896, married (recorded at Register IV/244), and presumably lived a full life.

John himself — Johann — was born on 10 September 1880, baptized on 26 September 1880, and confirmed in 1897, at the typical Reformed age of about sixteen or seventeen. His baptism took place just 16 days after his birth, which was standard practice in Swiss Reformed congregations.

Next came Frida, born 24 December 1887 — a Christmas Eve baby — and baptized 5 February 1888. The register notes she married an Oskar Meierhofer of Werich and that a register entry was made on 5 May 1908. A dagger symbol (†) in the margin alongside this entry may indicate a death; this warrants further investigation in Swiss civil records.

Emil followed on 23 February 1889, baptized 7 April 1889, and married on 5 July of an illegible year (Register IV/80). Alfons was born 9 January 1892, baptized 14 February 1892, and married 9 September of an illegible year (Register IV/87).

The youngest child was Hermann, born 18 December 1899, baptized 4 February 1900, confirmed 16 October 1914 — just weeks after the outbreak of World War I — and married 29 March 1926. He is the only sibling besides John whose death is definitively recorded in the register: 15 May 1932. Hermann was thirty-two years old. His early death may reflect the long shadow of the Great War or its aftermath, but the cause is not recorded.

What this register confirms is something I had only partially suspected: John came from a substantial family of seven children, most of whom appear to have survived to adulthood. He left all of them behind when he emigrated.

“In Amerika”: The Single Phrase That Tells a Story

In the Bemerkungen (Remarks) column beside Johann’s entry, the register clerk wrote simply: in Amerika. Two words. No further detail — no date of departure, no destination, no indication of whether he intended to return. Yet those two words carry enormous weight.

John was not alone in making this journey. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw massive emigration from Switzerland, particularly from the rural, farming communities of Canton Zürich and the mountain cantons. The Swiss Reformed community at New Glarus, Wisconsin — founded in 1845 by emigrants from Canton Glarus — was a well-established destination for Swiss immigrants seeking familiar community and familiar faces. John arrived in 1901, at age twenty, and it was there that he would meet and marry Bertha Barbara Trümpi in 1905.

John Huber in America

After arriving in Wisconsin around 1901, John settled in the Swiss immigrant community of New Glarus. He married Bertha Barbara Trümpi there in 1905. The couple had two children: Florence Wilma, born in 1908 — who would become Mary-Alice’s maternal grandmother — and Clarence Edward, born Christmas Eve 1909.

By 1910, the family had moved to Alabama, and by 1920, they had relocated again, this time to James Township in Saginaw County, Michigan, where they would remain for the rest of their lives. John took up farming once more — following, perhaps unconsciously, in the footsteps of his father, the Landwirth, back in Pfeinclauf.

Florence died young, in 1934, having married Robert Harry Darling. It was through Florence and Robert that Mary-Alice’s family line descends. Clarence, John’s only son, had no children of his own, meaning that the Huber surname ended with him.

John Huber died in 1948 in James Township, Saginaw County, Michigan. He was sixty-seven years old. He had traveled a long way from the farming village of Windlach.

What the Register Adds to Research

This Familienregister page is significant for several reasons. It is the first documentary source I have that records John’s baptism date (26 September 1880) and confirmation year (1897). It provides his mother’s maiden name, Nüsslingen — the married name was Huber, but the maiden surname had eluded me. It places the family firmly in a specific named register, Nr. 1486, from the locality of Pfeinclauf, which appears to be a Swiss Reformed parish record.

The register also corrects my earlier sibling count. I previously believed John had four siblings; in fact, there were six, plus a seventh who died in infancy. The addition of the infant Jakob (1878), who was never previously in my records, is both genealogically and humanly important. It tells us something about the family before John was born — about a grief that preceded him.

The cross-references to Band IV, pages 80, 87, 115, and 244, are direct leads to the family records of Emil, Alfons, Hermann, and the second Jakob, respectively. Each of those pages, if found, could yield grandchildren of Johann Jakob Huber and Katharina Nüsslingen — cousins of John who remained in Switzerland while he crossed the ocean.

Sources and Notes

[i] Swiss Familienregister, Familie des Joh. Jak. Huber, Landwirth, von Pfeinclauf, Nr. 1486. Original document image, author’s collection. Transcribed and translated by the author, 2025.

[ii] Surname Saturday – Huber. Don Taylor Genealogy, 25 November 2018. dontaylorgenealogy.com. Accessed 2025.

[iii] 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 35 – John Huber (1880-1948). Don Taylor Genealogy, August 2014. dontaylorgenealogy.com. Accessed 2025.

[iv] Ancestor Sketch – John Huber – Take 2. Don Taylor Genealogy, May 2024. dontaylorgenealogy.com. Accessed 2025.

[v] Clarence Edward Huber’s birth record is noted in family sources as 24 December 1909, Elberta/Josephine, Baldwin Township, Alabama.

Disclaimer: This article was researched and written by the author. Claude.ai was used as a research and drafting aid, and Grammarly was used for editorial review and copy editing.