Riedern, Glarus, Switzerland Genealogy

Description: Guide to Riedern, Glarus, 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 2006, Riedern has an area of 23.8 km2 (9.2 sq mi). Riedern is located in the See-Gaster Wahlkreis on a terrace above and east of the Linth valley. It includes the Haufendorf village (an irregular, unplanned, and quite closely packed village, built around a central square) of Rieden and separated individual farmhouses.

The land use is divided up as follows:
 * 39.8% is used for agricultural purposes
 * 56.4% is forested
 * 3% is settled (buildings or roads)
 * 0.7% is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains)

History
The first mention of Rieden was in 1045 as Rieta. The former municipalities of Rieden and Ernetschwil merged into the municipality of Gommiswald on 1 January 2013.

The population history of Obstalden is: 1802 - 350 inhabitants 1831 - 551 inhabitants 1850 - 428 inhabitants 1900 - 414 inhabitants 1950 - 451 inhabitants 1960 - 361 inhabitants 2000 - 707 inhabitants

Riedern territory was under the land lordship of the Schänis convent from the Middle Ages to 1798. In 1284 and 1304, the people of Riedern were defined as owners of the monastery of Schänis. A village community appeared in 1469, when the rights of use in the forest of Wilderau were shared between Riedern and Kaltbrunn. Spiritually, until 1762, the village was part of Benken. The Saint-Magne chapel, built in 1707, was replaced in 1769-1770 by the parish church built on the same site.

The isolated village was only accessible by mule trains, until the construction of the Gommiswald road in 1839-1841.

Church Records
Riedern belonged to the parish of Glarus. Information from the church records was extracted by Johann Jakob Kubly-Müller and organized into families. The Glarus Family Tree has made much of this data available online.

Original church records for Canton Glarus are only accessible at the Glarus State Archives.

Civil Registration
Civil registration began in 1849. Riedern belongs to the Glarus civil registration district. Records are only available in Switzerland. For further information, contact the civil registry office at:

Zivilstandskreis Glarus Postgasse 29 8750 Glarus Tel: +41 55 646 69 50 email: [mailto:zivilstandsamt@gl.ch zivilstandsamt@gl.ch]

Genealogies
(Click here for an article describing Swiss compiled genealogies.)

The Glarus Family Tree is a project which shows the family links between about 200 original families from Glarus. The source of most of this information is the 30-year, 36-volume genealogical masterpiece by Johann Jakob Kubly-Müller. The tree has more than 270,000 individuals can be found online at Geneal-Tree, MyHeritage, Geneanet, and Ancestry.

Related sources
In 2011, Canton Glarus was reorganized into three municipalities. Riedern is now part of the municipality of Glarus. The municipality website can be accessed here.

Libraries and archives
State Archives of Glarus