Bosco/Gurin Parish, Ticino, Switzerland Genealogy

Description: Guide to Bosco/Gurin Parish, Ticino, Switzerland, ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, parish census, civil census, family history, area history, and military records.



Geography
As of 1997, Bosco/Gurin has an area of 22.04 square kilometers (8.51 sq mi). Bosco is situated in the Vallemaggia district, and the highest municipality in Ticino at an elevation of 1,504 m (4,934 ft). The village is located near the end of the valley of Bosco Gurin, near the Italian border.

The land use is divided up as follows:
 * 3.1% - agricultural purposes
 * 27.9% - forested
 * 0.9% - settled (buildings or roads)
 * 1.3% - rivers or lakes
 * 42.1% - unproductive land

History
The first mention of Bosco/Gurin was in 1227 as Boidi.

The population history of Bosco/Gurin is: 1354 - 32 fireplaces 1567 - 50 fireplaces 1602 - 201 inhabitants 1745 - 323 inhabitants 1850 - 362 inhabitants 1880 - 420 inhabitants 1900 - 356 inhabitants 1950 - 935 inhabitants 1980 - 1477 inhabitants 2000 - 1058 inhabitants 2010 - 980 inhabitants

During the Middle Ages, Bodio and the now abandoned village of Simbra (or Saimola) created a Degagna in the Giornico area. Until the 16th century, the village belonged to the parish of Giornico. It became an individual parish in 1567, and until 1602 Pollegio was part of the parish. The church of Santo Stefano was first mentioned in 1227, but along with a large part of the village, it was destroyed by a landslide in the 15th century. The present parish church dates from the 19th century, the bell tower from 1779. The floods of 1817, 1829, 1834 and 1839 caused great destruction in the village and a further flood of the Ticino river in 1868, caused 18 fatalities and destroyed individual houses.

Census
(See here for information regarding Ticino census records.)

The 1808 Ticino census for Bosco/Gurin can be accessed here.

Surnames
The following surnames held citizenship in Bosco/Gurin prior to 1875, along with any known soprannomi. For more information about soprannomi, click here.

Related sources
The town's website (in Italian) can be found here.

Libraries and archives
State Archives of Ticino

Societies
Società Genealogica della Svizzera Italiana (SGSI)