I had wondered why people would leave Switzerland because like Austria these are two of the most beautiful places on earth (my thoughts). So, why would people leave a place this beautiful with beautiful mountains and greenery like this? and amazing streams and lakes and a wonderful place to live?
Religious freedom so they didn't have to die or suffer their whole lives for not being Catholics.
However, Religious persecution for being likely AnaBaptists makes sense because many many Anabaptists left for America especially Pennsylvania around this time and my relatives went to Philadelphia first and then spread especially into Illinois, Ohio, and Kansas by the late 1800s when my grandfather was born in the 1870s or early 1880s. I got to know my Grandfather from my birth to 4 years old and then I saw him several times from my age 12 to my age 22 years old before he passed away in 1970 in the Fall in a Panel Van accident in Idaho near his Mining Claim. He also owned a house in Seattle in Lake Forest Park and 2 1/2 acres of Apple Trees and black Cherry trees and raspberries and boysenberries. I lived on his land until I was 4 years old in 1952 and my father moved me and my mother and her mother and myself to Vista, California near San Diego, California.
This also makes sense regarding the Separation of Church and State which were tenants of the Anabaptist ideas. Though I have a cousin and an Uncle who served in the Navy my own father and his brother were electricians building Liberty Ships during World War II in Seattle Harbor. So, even then this idea of separation of Church and state and not being forced to be in the military still survived (this Anabaptist idea) from the 1500s on I guess.
This explains a lot about why my family (on my father's side) came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the first place around 1725. Several brothers, My ancestors came from Switzerland then to avoid persecution and to join with other Anabaptists who were already in Pennsylvania then.
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