Our progenitor was not the first Trachsel. He is however the apparent end of the line for our family's genealogy. It was not until 1525 that the Reformed Churches in Switzerland were required to maintain baptismal records. Prior to that time there were a number of notable and historical Trachsel individuals, which I will discuss at length in another post, whose dots cannot yet be connected to our family. They are tantalizingly close but further research will be needed to make the connection or not.
[1] Peter [Christian?] Trachsel was born around 1500 in/around Zurich, Switzerland, there is no record of his birth of his parents. He married around 1523/1524 to a woman for whom we have no name and joined the Reformed Church in St. Stephen, Simmental, Canton Bern. There is some uncertainty in the record concerning our progenitor. Was it “Peter” or “Christian”? In the user generated Ancestry Family Trees it is listed as “Christian” who died on December 3, 1555, in his hometown, Lenk,Simmental, Canton Bern, Switzerland at the age of 55. However Troxel reports that L. Wesley Argon, in his book, states that Peter Trachsel was the only Trachsel shown in Swiss history known to be in St. Stephen in 1527. It must be said that Wesley’s citations lack certain desired details but are otherwise closer to actual events thus, in the view of this compiler, justifying greater reliance. Also, the common practice of having two given names, first and middle, may explain the confusion in the records. Perhaps it was Peter Christian or Christian Peter, maybe we will find out one day.
If Peter did, in fact, grow up in the area around Zurich and move to St. Stephen, just a few miles down the river/road from Lenk, this could answer many questions about the sudden appearance of the Trachsel clan in the Simmental region and their equally sudden departure a couple of centuries later. The year 1525 was a monumental year, if not a year of terror. Martin Luther issued his ninety-five thesis eight years prior. By 1525 Huldrych Zwingli had convinced the Zurich leaders, der Bürgermeister und der Gemeinderat (mayor and city council), to make the Reformed Church the one and only church for Zurich. Unfortunately there lived in the area many Anabaptists who differed in theology and practice on one, critical, topic, “infant baptism.” Anabaptists held that baptism was an act of a repentant sinner, consciously entered into as an act of obedience to God, called “Believer’s Baptism.” The Bürgermeister were horrified! In fairness it should be pointed out that they viewed this practice as a form of child abuse, withholding God’s saving grace and admission to Heaven in the event of an early death and infant mortality rates were high during this era. January 12, 1525, the Council of Zurich issued the following decree. “Since there are certain men who falsely teach that young children should not be baptized until they reach an age of understanding, the burgomasters… announce that such men are invited to appear… and openly express their views… and our lords will deal with the matter further.” Predictably, these discussions and debates soon degenerated into shouting matches and name calling. When it was realized that neither side would budge, the city leaders proclaimed that the practice of adult baptism was a crime punishable by death.
Felix Manz was an outspoken leader of the Anabaptists in Zurich who severely criticized Zwingli. Soon after it was made illegal, Manz began boldly defying the ordinance and performed the first recorded adult baptism. He performed several more until his execution by drowning in the Limmat River as a “special” baptism. Many others suffered similar fate until 1614 when 70-year-old farmer Hans Landis was the last to be executed.
477 Years later the Swiss Reformed Church issued a formal, heartfelt apology saying “We confess that, that persecution was, according to our present conviction, a betrayal of the Gospel and that our reformed forefathers were in error on this issue.” The leaders of modern Anabaptist successor organizations graciously accepted the apology stating, “We have acknowledged the threat our Anabaptist forebearers posed to Zurich’s ordered society during an era of turbulent changes. We understand that the Zurich reformers believed that they were rediscovering ‘the liberating Gospel of Jesus Christ’, for which they were also ‘willing to give up their lives’.”
It is not at all unreasonable to believe that young Peter Trachsel and his wife departed from the area of Zurich and sought refuge from the troubles to come in a place like St. Stephen in the Canton of Bern with an established Reformed congregation. Young Peter Trachsel most likely found the valley of the Simme River more conducive to raising a family. Simmental means “Simme valley”. Lenk, their later home, was only five miles upstream.
