Klingnau Parish, Aargau, Switzerland Genealogy

Description: Guide to Klingnau 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 Klingnau is in the district of Zurzach in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. The municipality is located on the right side of the lower Aare valley between the Klingnauer Stausee lake and the Achenberg. The village is situated in a rocky outcropping, that used to be an island in the Aare river which influenced the shape of the old village. The side channel of the river has since then silted up therefore the town is no longer an island. It includes two rows of houses surrounding a lens-shaped church plaza.

Klingnau (as of 2009) has an area of 6.71 km² (2.59 square miles). The land use is divided up as follows:
 * 38.0% - agricultural purposes
 * 34.7% - forested
 * 19.2% - settled (buildings or roads)
 * 7.5% - either rivers or lakes
 * 0.7% - non-productive

History
In 1239, Klingnau was first mentioned by the name of Chlingenowe.

The population history of Klingnau is: 1800 - 1,000 inhabitants 1850 - 1,300 inhabitants 1900 - 1,134 inhabitants 1950 - 1,778 inhabitants 2000 - 2,710 inhabitants 2020 - 3,540 inhabitants

Per the 2000 census:
 * 57.3% belonged to the Roman Catholic Church
 * 23.5% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church
 * 0.18% belonged to the Christian Catholic faith

At the time of city inception, the area was part of the parish of Zurzach. In 1265, the collegiate church of Zurzach posted a permanent parish priest to Klingnau. In 1360, the parish of Klingnau consisted of the city, the Chapel of Koblenz and the churches in Döttingen and Würenlingen. In this year the Bishop of Constance granted the parish church to the monastery Zurzach. In 1864, the selection of the parish priest went to the parish and then about two years later, the rights and obligations of the congregation to the church at Zurzach were discontinued. The Catholic parish church of St. Catherine was built in 1491 and was refurbished in 1968–69. The Loreto Chapel on the Achenberg was constructed from 1660–62 while the Reformed church was constructed in 1935.

Church Records
The parish of Klingnau was first mentioned in 1360; its parish church is called St. Katharina. It included Döttingen until 1848, Koblenz until 1927, and Würenlingen until 1779

The following church records are only available onsite at the Klingnau parish church office:
 * Baptisms 1614-1695; marriages 1608-1711; burials 1611-1665, 1673-1711; confirmations 1653-1692
 * Baptisms 1817-1875

The following church records are only available onsite at the Klingnau city archive:
 * Baptisms, marriages, burials 1712-1805; confirmations 1705-1780
 * Baptisms, marriages, burials 1806-1832 (organized by location); confirmations 1808-1839, 1846-1865
 * Baptisms 1817-1847
 * Baptisms 1848-1875
 * Marriages 1817-1852
 * Marriages 1853-1875
 * Marriages non-resident citizens 1817-1874
 * Burials 1817-1863
 * Burials 1864-1875

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

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

The following censuses are available from FamilySearch for Klingnau:
 * 1837 (images 632-650)
 * 1850: Form A (images 535-566)
 * 1850: Form B (images 567-568)

Surnames
The following surnames held citizenship in Klingnau 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 Zürich (GHGZ)