Kaisten Parish, Aargau, Switzerland Genealogy

Description: Guide to Kaisten Parish, Aargau, Switzerland, ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, parish census, civil census, family history, area history, and military records.



Geography
The municipality of Kaisten is in the district of Laufenburg in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. It is situated in the upper Fricktal (Frick river valley). It includes the haufendorf village (an irregular, unplanned and quite closely packed village, built around a central square) of Kaisten and the hamlets of Oberkaisten as well as the former municipality of Ittenthal.

Kaisten (as of 2009) has an area of 14.19 km² (5.48 square miles). The land use is divided up as follows:
 * 41.3% - agricultural purposes
 * 45.0% - forested
 * 11.4% - settled (buildings or roads)
 * 2.1% - either rivers or lakes
 * 0.1% - non-productive

History
In 1282, Kaisten was first mentioned by the name of Keiston.

The municipality of Ittenthal merged into the municipality of Kaisten on 1 January 2010.

The population history of Kaisten is: 1803 - 875 inhabitants 1850 - 1,189 inhabitants 1900 - 994 inhabitants 1950 - 1,160 inhabitants 2000 - 2,054 inhabitants 2020 - 2,754 inhabitants

Per the 2000 census:
 * 63.2% belonged to the Roman Catholic Church
 * 19.2% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church
 * 0.49% belonged to the Christian Catholic faith

The Church of St. Michael, founded by Säckingen, was first attested in 1443. Until 1804, it was a Laufenburg branch church. The present building was constructed in 1717. Kaisten and Ittenthal formed a parish and then separated in 1812.

Church Records
Kaisten belonged to the parish of Laufenburg until 1804, when it became an independent parish.; its parish church is St. Michael. Ittenthal was part of the parish until 1812, when it fully separated.

Original church records are located onsite at the Kaisten municipal archive. Microfilm copies of the following church records are available onsite at the Aargau State Archives:
 * Baptisms 1602-1711; marriages 1602-1716; burials 1643-1703; confirmations 1670-1705
 * Baptisms 1708-1787; marriages, burials 1728-1787
 * Baptisms 1784-1816
 * Baptisms 1817-1875

The following church records are only available onsite at the Kaisten municipal archive:
 * Baptisms 1817-1834
 * Marriages 1784-1816
 * Marriages 1817-1834
 * Marriages 1817-1852
 * Marriages 1853-1875
 * Marriages non-resident citizens 1817-1854
 * Burials 1817-1834
 * Burials 1817-1875

Post-1875 church records are found onsite at the Kaisten parish church office.

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

The following censuses are available from FamilySearch for Kaisten:
 * 1837 (images 787-803)
 * 1850: Form A (images 460-488)
 * 1850: Form B (images 489-490)

Surnames
The following surnames held citizenship in Kaisten prior to 1875:

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

Libraries and archives
State Archives of Aargau

Societies
Genealogical-Heraldic Society of Region Basel (GHGRB)