Eiken Parish, Aargau, Switzerland Genealogy

Description: Guide to Eiken 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 Eiken (High Alemannic: Äike) is in the district of Laufenburg in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. It is situated in the upper Fricktal on the old Bözberg road from Basel to Zürich. It includes the linear village of Eiken, which was originally a haufendorf village (an irregular, unplanned and quite closely packed village, built around a central square).

Eiken (as of 2009) has an area of 7.08 km² (2.73 square miles). The land use is divided up as follows:
 * 44.4% - agricultural purposes
 * 30.5% - forested
 * 23.0% - settled (buildings or roads)
 * 0.7% - either rivers or lakes
 * 0.4% - non-productive

History
In the first half of the 12th Century, Eiken was first mentioned by the name of Eitchon.

The population history of Eiken is: 1768 - 451 inhabitants 1850 - 837 inhabitants 1900 - 795 inhabitants 1930 - 760 inhabitants 1950 - 892 inhabitants 2000 - 1,750 inhabitants 2020 - 2,331 inhabitants

Per the 2000 census:
 * 58.5% were Roman Catholic
 * 25.0% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church
 * 0.86% belonged to the Christian Catholic Church

Sometime before 1228, the Knight Rudolf Möhlin, was given the patronage of his own church by St. Martin Church of Rheinfelden. This patronage included the Church of Eiken until 1868. Between 1871-73, Eiken constructed a new church, which was dedicated in 1891 to St. Vincent, Joseph and Mary. The Catholic parish of Eiken consists of the municipalities of Münchwilen and Sisseln.

Church Records
The parish of Eiken, centered on the St. Vinzenz church, was was first mentioned in 1228. It includes the municipality of Münchwilen, and, since 1797, the municipality of Sisseln.

The following church records are available onsite in the Eiken parish church office:
 * Baptisms, marriages, burials 1640-1700; confirmations 1649-1696
 * Baptisms, marriages, burials 1700-1748; confirmations 1705-1734, 1749-1791
 * Baptisms, marriages, burials 1748-1790
 * Eiken: Baptisms 1785-1841; confirmations 1805-1860
 * Münchwilen: Baptisms 1785-1838; confirmations 1810-1841
 * Sisseln: Baptisms, marriages, burials 1796-1838; confirmations 1810-1841
 * Baptisms 1817-1818; marriages 1817-1829; burials 1817-1819
 * Baptisms 1817-1872
 * Münchwilen marriages 1785-1838
 * Münchwilen burials 1785-1838

The following church records are located onsite at the Eiken municipal archive. Microfilm copies of the following church records are available onsite at the Aargau State Archives:
 * Baptisms 1865-1876
 * Eiken Marriages 1785-1838
 * Marriages 1817-1852
 * Marriages 1853-1875
 * Marriages non-resident citizens 1817-1873
 * Eiken burials 1785-1838
 * Burials 1817-1876

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

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

The following censuses are available from FamilySearch for Eiken:
 * 1837 (images 680-697)
 * 1850: Form A (images 292-311)
 * 1850: Form B (image 312)

Surnames
The following surnames held citizenship in Eiken 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)