Coat of Arms of the AMBÜHL family from the Canton of Lucerne

We have put these two names together because etymologically they are the same. They each have the suffix "Biehl" or "Bühl", meaning a small hill. The ZUM and AM BIEHL were originally the people who lived near a hill.

This name is thus a toponym, a name of geographical origin, like Dumont, BIEHLER an BIELLMANN. The Ambiehl and Zumbiehl forms are typically Swiss and almost all the families with these names living in Upper Alsace today came two or three centuries ago from nearby Switzerland.

The written versions ZUM or AM - BIEHL were not immediately established. The two forms were used indifferently as late as the 17th century, and even for the same person. Then the branches became separate, so that today here are two distinct families, and we shall therefore deal with them separately.

The Historical and Biographical Dictionary of Switzerland devotes a large chapter to this family from the Cantons of Lucerne, St. Gallen,Unterwald, Valais and Zurich.

We shall pause for a moment with the branches coming from the canton of Lucerne, where the majority of Ambiehls in Alsace originate. The Dictionary mentions an Ulrich AMBÜHLfrom 1285 in the district of Willisau.

This district, to the West of Lake Sempach, included among others the districts of Willisau, Grossdietwil, Ettiswil, Altihofen and Knutwil, which we will return to later. With the exception of the last two localities, all of these districts were home to burghers called AMBÜHL.

In his research into the Coats of Arms of the families of Entlebuch, adjoining the Willisau district, the author discovered the Arms of the AMBÜHL family. We note the gothic "H" in black, which also appears in the Arms of the AMBÜHL family of Unterwald Canton, where Jean AMBÜHL, Abbot of Engelberg was born in 1450. The branches from different cantons had their own Arms, which are also described in the dictionary mentioned above.

Calvaire des AMBIEL meuniers à Ste Croix en Plaine : prendre le fût cartouche avec l'inscription et l'emblême des meuniers

After the catastrophic disaster of the Thirty Years War, reconstruction and repopulation depended very much on foreign resources, notably from Switzerland.

For the Zumbiel and Ambiel families alike, this migration took place on a grand scale from the district of Willisau. Hans AM BIEHL, originally from Altishoffen, settled for nine months in Gueberschwihr as a butcher, before requesting his departure certificate in 1697.

At Brunstatt, Barbe AMBIEL from the same village of Altishoffen, married in 1697 a convert from Sissach, near Basel. An AMBIELL famly was present from 1693 at Manspach, but we do not know their origins. In Lutterbach the AMBIEL family was known of through the marriage in 1711 of Léon and Catherine BURCKARD (source: André Kiener). The couple had a child named Joseph, but the wife died shortly afterwards.

In 1714 Léon AMBIEL remarried, this time to Maria HERMANN. Undoubtedly a close relative of Léon, Benjamùin AMBIEL married in Lutterbach in 1711 a Marie STRUB. Another branch, from Ettiswil, settled in Ebersheim in the Bas-Rhin in 1665 (source: Charles Balla).

She had many descendants who bore the name AMBIEHL, and one of the branches settles in Largitzen. In the Than valley a certain Rodolph AMBIEL lived for a short time at Husseren where his daughter was born in 1767. We do not know all of what became her. However the marriage took place at Thann in 1808 of an AMBÜHL girl who came from the canton of St. Gallen.

An AM BYEL famiy appears in Pfaffenheim from the beginning of the keeping of the records. Two family heads,who were doubtlesly brothers, are known to us: Adam and Jacques AMBIEL.

The first, Adam, had married Agathe MEISTERMANN of an old established local family. They had five children who were all baptised at Pfaffenheim between 1664 and 1671.

The second of these children, a son called Jacques, married Véronique SCHRANTZ, who gave him eight children. Of these, we should mention Jean Thiébaud, born in June 1669. At the age of ten, he was confirmed with many other children in the franciscan church at Rouffach in August 1679.

Jean Thiébaut married a girl, Barbe MOEGLEN, from the village of Gundolsheim at the end of November 1690. Their first child, a son, Jean Thiébaud, was born in Gundolsheim in 1691 (source: Alain Eckes). The couple then settled in Pfaffenheim where their many other children were born.

In the neighbouring town of Rouffach, two people with this name are known to have existed in the 17th century. Jean AM BYHEL, who married Anne Marie GILCHER in 1680 and Elisabeth AM BIEL, who the year before had married the widow Antoine WAGNER.

From 1653 this medieval town had witnessed the marriage of Michel HACK and Apollinie AM BIEL, whose origins in Ettiswil leave no doubt as to her belonging to the great AMBIEL family.

Not far from Rouffach, at Raedersheim, the young Jean IM BÜEL married Elisabeth WOLFF in 1672. The vicar noted that the husband was from the canton of Lucerne, without adding any other information.

In its Magazine "S'Lindeblätt", the Historical Society of Linthal published a paper by Maurice Kech dealing with the history of family names. He speaks of the baptism in 1686 of Nicolas, son of Adam AMBÜHEL to Agathe ROTH.

They were immigrants from Switzerland, both from the Lucerne canton. The wife was from Ettiswil and the husband from Grossdietwil. They were already living in Lautenbach in 1683, the year their son Joseph was baptised.

Their daughter Elisabeth married Jean Thiébaud, on of the provost Christian KLEIN, in Lautenbach in 1697 (source: Thierry SCHMITT). Adam was issued with a birth certificate and a certificate of good behaviour in 1705 by the Grossdietwil authorities (Source: Lucerne Protocols - J. Schürmann). He must have needed this document to support his application to the Chancelry of Murbach to be a burgher.

The AMBIEL were still living in Lautenbach in the second half of the 18th century, but their branch came from Buhl. This branch started with Jean AMBIEHL and his wife Catherine MULLER, whose sons Jean and Melchior had married respectively in Buhl in 1728 and 1736, one a MUSSELIN from Cernay, the other a VOGT from Buhl.

It was a son of Melchior, called Dominique, who married Anne Marie GERRER in Lautenbach in 1764. In the Wuenheim valley lived Joachim AMBIEL and his family. He became part of the village corporation in 1739.

According to the historian Gasser, this family died out at the beginning of the century. They were doubtlessly linked to the AMBIEL family from Soultz, who originated in Grossdietwil and settled in the town in 1681.

Researched by Gérard FLESCH and Jean-Louis KLEINDIENST, the AMBIEHL family from the Dessenheim - Heiteren area were many and are today still living at Rustenhart. Their genealogy begins with Gaspard AMBIEHL originally from Ettiswil, and his many children born between 1678 and 1694.

Thi family of weavers spread throughout the whole region. A son, Melchior, rented a house in Dessenheim in 1707. Also in Dessenheim, Jean AMBIEHL was a member of the Saint-Sebastien of Neiderentzen Fraternity in 1720 (source: Georges Bordmann).

A daughter, Catherine, married a Cadé in 1782 at Wihr-au-Val. Her brothers Antoine and André AMBIEHL were witnesses at her marriage. At the beginning of the 19th centuryn the daughter of Antoine AMBIEHL and Thérèse KRETZER married a BIEHLER at Guebwiller.

Also from Dessenheim, Laurent and Léger AMBIEL were from the Artzenheim branches, one of which began the Rustenhart branch. Finally, we should note the departure for America in 1817 of Richard and Antoine AMBIEHL, both from Dessenheim.

In 1659 was celebrated at Saint Croix en Plaine the engagement of two immigrants from Lucerne, Ulrich AM BÜEHL; from Ettiswil and Véronique FREY, from Knutwil.

Several years later, a branch of the family AMBIEL possessed the watermill at Neiderhergheim. It was Balthazard, shown in the parish register of Saint Croix en Plaine as being "molitoris in Herckheim Inferioris" wherein are shown the records of the marriage of his sons Gabriel, in 1702 and Jean in 1707.

This family of millers had built, in the 18th century, a country cross beside their mill, and this cross stands today and is decorated with the emblem of their trade, a watermill-wheel with paddles.

(Source: Neiderhergheil through the Ages, by Léon Rohn).

This great patronym is worthy of further research, even if the Valais and Obwald roots are already the subject of several publications. It would be interesting in particular to trace the source, at Ettiswil, especially as the registers of this parish were begun in 1585.

THE ZUMBIEHL AND ZUMBÜHL FAMILIES

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Following on from the AMBIEHL families of the preceding section, we now turn our attention to the ZUMBIEHL or ZUMBÜHL family. Nearly all the families of this name living in Upper Alsace are of Swiss origin, where a Rodolphe ZEN BULUN has been recorded as living in 1330.

High Street at Oberentzen (where the Zumbiehls owned a house)

These two Swiss cantons were home to the ZUMBÜHL since time immemorial.

The Historical and Biographical Dictionary of Switzerland devotes a section to them which reveals that branch living in the canton of Uri died out in the 18th entury.

The Coat of Arms bore a blue background with a silver Jerusalem Cross with three sections of green accompanied by two gold stars.

Coming from Altdorf in the canton of Uri, Anne Marguerite ZUM BIEL, the wife of Jacques WIPFLIN, died in 1705 at Sainte-Croix-en-Plaine.

Some years before, in 1699, Marie Madeleine ZUMBIEL from Uri had married at Dietwiller in the Sundgau a certain Thiébaud STARCK. Many ZUMBÜHLs live today in the cantons of Lucerne and Unterwald.

Those coming from Unterwald had heraldic arms consisting of - and I translate into modern English - "a blue background with a golden star with six points held high by three sections in green". A paper covering four centuries on the branch who were millers at Nidwald was published in Stans in 1977. A ZUM BIEHL from Unterwald, a batchelor at the age of 73, was buried at Eguisheim in 1720.

To the north of Lucerne is the district of Hochdorf, whose principal town of the same name would seem to be the cradle of the ZUMBÜHL family. People of this name were known to have lived in this area, inhabited since the bronze age, from the 16th century. In 1570 Joerg and Hans ZUMBÜHL were popular leaders.

The town has conserved its parish registers going back to the end of the 16th century. From Hochdorf, where several ZUMBÜHLs were burghers, branches spread to Lucerne and other cantons.

The work of the late Joseph Schürmann tell of the departure of several Zumbühls at the end of the 16th century. Some went to Hungary or to Italy, but many went to Alsace, which proposed land and tax exemption to the newcomers.

It was in his way hat Jean Jacques and Louis ZUMBÜHL settled in Ribeauvillé, Jacques in Molsheim and Gaspard elsewhere in Alsace, Marie Anne in Merxheim, etc. . . But we also find them in Reiningue with the baptism of Henri, son of Jacques ZUO BIEL and Marguerite TANNER in november 1695, or in Rixheim, with the marriage in 1774 of Gaspard ZUMBUEL, originally from Hochdorf.

In Bitschwiller at the end of the Thann valley, we find François ZUMBÜHL also from Hochdorf. He had his daughter Madeleine baptised in 1735 at the Parish Church of Willer-sur-Thur.

Hirtzfelden saw the arrival around 1687, the year of his marriage to Marie JENNY from Roggenhouse, the young Bernard ZUMBIEHL, a native of Hochdorf. The couple originated a whole lineage of ZUMBIEHL, whose genealogy has been studied in a family tree on the "Schevin" model.

This line settled in Oderen, Hirtzfelden, Oberhergheim, Oberentzen, Ensisheim, Mulhouse and Guebwiller (source: Haury). At Merxheim the branch is represented by Louis ZUMBIHL, soapmaker, and his wife Anne WEISS.

From 1676 we find records of the marriages of their children in Merxheim. In that year, their daughter Elisabeth married Mathias SCHMITT in February, and then three months afterwards her sister Barbe married Nicolas BIR from Gundolsheim. Their sister Marie Anne married much later, in 1695, to Jean KIMPFLIN.

We know of the founder of this lineage here too. He was Jean Gaspard ZUM BÜEL, a native of Hochdorf, who married in February 1672 in Feldkirch, at that time the mother-parish of Bollwiller, the young Marguerite SALOMON, from an old-established family of the region.

The couple had several children, and four of them were still alive in 1688 when their father's will was read. The children were represented by their tutor, Jean ZUM BIEHL, from Hochdorf, proof that the relations with their home village were not broken.

A letter from the authorities at Hochdorf accompanied the list of effects in the Will; this was dated January 7th 1688. The letter showed that there were still rents due to him at Hochdorf. Of the four children, only one boy, Jean Michel, carried on the family name.

The daughters, Anne Marie, Elisabeth and Marguerite married respectively Michel KOEPFLIN from Bollwiller, Jean BELLOME who was a francophone, and Joseph GOY, the tax-collector from Bollwiller. After the death of her husband, Marguerite remarried in 1715 to Jean Thiébaud BLESI from Ruelisheim.

As for their mother, Margeurite SALOMON, she remarried in 1688, to Jean BUTTICH. The son Jean Michel, a soapmaker like his father, married Apollinie RICHERT in 1707 following the traditional publication in the announcements of the parish church of the three wedding bans.

He died in 1725 following his second marriage, to Anne Marie WALCH, who gave him three children. Of his first wife who died in 1712, were born two daughters one of whom died at an early age and the other married Jean Thiébaud HOLDER from Feldkirch. Jean Michel had a house in the village of Bollwiller, on the road to Cernay. It possessed a barn and a vegetable garden. This property was left to his elder daughter Elisabeth HOLDER.

In November 1857 Antoine ZUMBIEHL, a ploughman from Oberentzen, applied for a passport to go to settle in Texas (source: Miss Dreyer).

He went to join the Alsatian community who lived in Castroville. Born in 1839 at Neiderentzen he was the son of François Joseph ZUMBIEHL, smallholder and then bar-keeper, and Catherine JAEGY the daughter of Sébastien JAEGY, decorated with the French Legion of Honour.

François Joseph was born at Oberentzen at his parents' home (François Antoine ZUMBIEHL and Catherine HASSENFORDER). His father was a bar-keeper and owned his own house on the High Street. He had been born at Neiderentzen on the 13th day of the Revolutionary month of Messidor in Year Two of the Republic, that is to say on July 1st 1794.

He was the son of Bathélémy ZUMBIEHL, who died in Niederentzen in 1809, and Marie Agathe SCHREIBER. Barthélémy came from Hirtfelden where his parents lived. They were Joseph ZUMBIEHL and Véronique SCHERLIN. They came from the branch of the family mentioned earlier which originated in Hochdorf in the canton of Lucerne.

Translator's note: many of the Christian names mentioned in this paper are given in their modern French form rather than in the Germanic form probably used at the time.

e.g.: François Joseph for Franz-Josef and Jean for Johann.