{"id":44542,"date":"2026-04-05T08:46:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T08:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/44542\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T08:46:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T08:46:46","slug":"tracing-roots-back-to-a-swiss-witch-trial-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/44542\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracing roots back to a Swiss witch trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Four<\/p>\n

Margrit Amstutz emigrated to Canada in 1957. Her granddaughter Tammy Mackenzie, here (left) on her lap in the 1980s, traveled to Switzerland to retrace her family history. <\/p>\n

Courtesy of Tammy Mackenzie <\/p>\n

Tammy Mackenzie travelled from Canada to Glarus, in central Switzerland, to trace her grandmother\u2019s roots, recognising scenes from old photos and even meeting relatives who helped her understand how the village still shapes her values.\n<\/p>\n

This content was published on <\/p>\n

April 5, 2026 – 10:00\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n I am an experienced video journalist passionate about making complex topics accessible and engaging through compelling multimedia storytelling. Focused on social and environmental issues, I produce various video formats on a wide range of topics, specialising in impactful explainer videos with motion graphics and stop-motion animation.
\nDuring my studies in cinema, English literature and journalism, I\u2019ve gained experience in radio, television, and print across Switzerland. After working with the Locarno Film Festival\u2019s image & sound team, I joined SWI swissinfo.ch in 2018 to produce local and international reportages. <\/p>\n


\n More from this author <\/a><\/p>\n


\n Multimedia <\/a><\/p>\n

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\n As a photo editor I am responsible for the editorial use of photography at SWI swissinfo.ch and our collaborations with photographers. When the opportunity arises, I take a camera and accompany one of our journalists.
\nI trained as a photographer in Z\u00fcrich and began working as a photojournalist in 1989. I was a founder of the Swiss photographers’ agency Lookat Photos in 1990. A two-time World Press Award winner, I have also been awarded several Swiss national scholarships. My work has been widely exhibited and it is represented in various collections. <\/p>\n


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Other languages: 2 <\/p>\n

EN original <\/p>\n

\n Deutsch <\/p>\n

\n de <\/p>\n

Wenn die Suche nach den Schweizer Vorfahren zu einem Hexenprozess f\u00fchrt\n <\/p>\n

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Read more: Wenn die Suche nach den Schweizer Vorfahren zu einem Hexenprozess f\u00fchrt
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\n Fran\u00e7ais <\/p>\n

\n fr <\/p>\n

Sur les traces d\u2019un proc\u00e8s de sorci\u00e8res en Suisse\n <\/p>\n

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Read more: Sur les traces d\u2019un proc\u00e8s de sorci\u00e8res en Suisse
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Tammy Mackenzie stands in front of a three-metre-tall family tree in the Anna G\u00f6ldi museum in Glarus, central Switzerland, where an exhibition recalls the story of the \u201clast witch of Europe\u201d<\/a>. Her gaze moves from her phone to the tree and back to her phone, where she swipes and zooms through pictures. \u201cThere she is!\u201d she says, pointing somewhere at the top of the tree. \u201cEva Tschudi, that\u2019s her, that\u2019s my ancestor!\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tammy is 49 years old and was born in Canada, but her family roots are Swiss. So Swiss, that her ancestors might have played a role in a significant historical event: the execution of Anna G\u00f6ldi, accused of witchcraft by her employer Johann Jakob Tschudi in 1782. Tammy came across G\u00f6ldi\u2019s story by chance through her interest in witchcraft, and was shocked to discover her lineage could have been involved in the accusation that led to the beheading of the young woman.<\/p>\n

Family history resonates<\/p>\n

Standing before genealogical evidence linking her, like many others in Glarus, to the Tschudi family, Tammy feels the shame of her ancestors\u2019 involvement in the crime. \u201cThey were the privileged family that were able to put this accusation on somebody who didn\u2019t have privilege. She\u2019s a woman, she had no husband, no power. And I do inherit of that, of lines of power and privilege through my family,\u201d she says, touched by the exhibition. \u201cI also inherit the world in which this sort of thing happens to women. As a feminist, as a woman in romantic life, this is still part of the dynamics.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2023, Tammy co-founded the Aula Fellowship, a think-tank advocating for inclusive AI<\/a>. She explains that her advocacy comes from the values her family passed on to her. \u201cMy mom and my grandmother are people who\u2019ve taught me feminism from very small as something that is about justice. What is right for people is to love each other and respect each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stresses that she, her siblings and relatives were raised with Swiss values about how to be good people: staunchness, respect, self-control, sympathy for others and the ability to be diplomatic, the right to self-determination, and high expectations for children.<\/p>\n

\u2018Swissness\u2019 in Canada<\/p>\n

The family values were not the only Swiss element in Tammy\u2019s upbringing. She describes how her grandparents\u2019 house had a distinctive \u201cSwissness\u201d to it, with lots of wool craft, massive oak furniture, laced window coverings and a big cowbell hanging from the rafters. \u201cOutside there were handmade wooden shutters and eaves and flower boxes,\u201d she recalls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were raised to be from Glarus, so my accent is Glarnischer. I don\u2019t speak high German,\u201d explains Tammy, who learnt Swiss German from her mother, who still speaks it with her brothers. She occasionally took language classes offered by the protestant church in the town of Mount Royal, which she attended with her cousins. As children, they had their Swiss blouses and skirts, they heard stories of William Tell and the Habsburgs, and learned Swiss songs and how to use guns. Every year, at Easter, they did Eiert\u00fctsche, a Swiss tradition which involves smashing your own boiled egg against someone else\u2019sExternal link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

Tammy\u2019s family enjoys a typical Swiss Easter tradition. <\/p>\n

Courtesy of Tammy Mackenzie <\/p>\n

A Canadian with a Glarnischer accent<\/p>\n

While in Glarus, Tammy visited the Landesarchiv (cantonal archive) where she sifted through genealogical information that could complement what she had already compiled in an extensive Excel sheet, based off family records and internet research. \u201cBefore she died, my grandmother told me the family genealogy. So I have records going back really far: she knew six generations. I have her photo album, with numerous obituaries of family members because people here were sending her information over there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Tammy strolled around town, searching for the spots where her grandmother, Margrit Beglinger, posed in her youth. \u201cThe last time our family visited Glarus was in 1975,\u201d she recalls. \u201cMy mom and dad came with my grandparents and a couple uncles. I was there too: Mom was pregnant with me. My uncle says I was there but had a terrible view\u201d she laughs. With pride, the Canadian takes pictures of buildings which have the Beglinger and Leuzinger names on them.<\/p>\n

Born in Glarus in 1926, Margrit married Fernand Th\u00e9odore Amstutz and moved to canton Vaud, where she had three children, one of them being Marguerite, Tammy\u2019s mother. In 1957, pregnant with her fourth child, Margrit Amstutz moved with her family to Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Consulate for Canada showed them beautiful videos, saying \u2018come to Canada!\u2019. There was no winter at all in the Canadian videos. In reality, there\u2019s six months of winter, but my grandparents didn\u2019t mind,\u201d says Tammy. \u201cThey did well, had a nice house there and six kids. At first my grandfather was a mechanic and owned the first Texaco gas station, then he taught at college. My grandmother raised the kids and then she ran a successful flower production business: they had a small hold farm and some forest acres.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emigration runs in Tammy\u2019s paternal family as well: her great-grandparents Alphonse Mackenzie \u2013 born in Scotland but raised in Switzerland, in a religious commune that took in orphans \u2013 and Jeanne Marulaz moved from Switzerland to France after the First World War. There, Alexandre Mackenzie \u2013 Tammy\u2019s grandfather who was born in Chexbres, canton Vaud \u2013 became a French citizen. He later married, had children, and moved to Canada as well, where his son John Mackenzie met Marguerite Amstutz, Tammy\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

An unplanned encounter<\/p>\n

What Tammy wasn\u2019t expecting from the trip was meeting some of her relatives in the flesh. Yet, in a small village like Glarus where people greet each other on the streets and everybody knows everybody, it was just a matter of time. While Tammy was photographing the B\u00e4ren\u2019s entrance, the small restaurant her relatives owned, an employee came out to check on her. In a tentative Swiss German, the Canadian tried to explain she was related to the Beglinger-Leuzinger family, and was in town to retrace their footsteps.<\/p>\n

It turns out the Leuzinger family still lived in the house behind the B\u00e4ren, and a moment later, Tammy was standing at her mother\u2019s cousin\u2019s daughter\u2019s front door. \u201cMy husband called out to me saying that my cousin from Canada was here,\u201d explains Maya Leuzinger. \u201cI thought: \u2018relative perhaps, but surely not a cousin\u2019. We welcomed her in, and she knew everything about us: that I have a sister called Erna, one called Heidi, our birthyears, and that K\u00f6bi is my father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tammy\u2019s Glarnischerd\u00fctsch is a bit rusty, and she understands older family members more easily than the new generation. But thanks to a simultaneous translator on the phone, and Maya\u2019s husband Fritz\u2019s help, the two started exchanging memories and confirming family ties.<\/p>\n

\"3<\/p>\n

Maya, Erna and their father discover the family information Tammy gathered at the cantonal archive. <\/p>\n

SWI swissinfo.ch \/ C\u00e9line Stegm\u00fcller <\/p>\n

Tammy came back home with her phone full of photographic proof that will help her fill the gaps in her family tree. She\u2019s thrilled to reconnect the Swiss and Canadian sides of the tree, having invited Maya, Erna and their families to visit Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will try and do a virtual family reunion in June. I am encouraging all family members to plan for visits, and several have offered their homes already\u201d she says. \u201cWe are looking for other family members and would love to hear from them.\u00a0The last time Glarus family visited Canada was in the mid 1980s. Today, there\u2019s 57 of us over there in Canada\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Edited by Samuel Jaberg\/ds<\/p>\n

Series Genealogical research <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Margrit Amstutz emigrated to Canada in 1957. Her granddaughter Tammy Mackenzie, here (left) on her lap in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,2489,2492,1006,2669,461,3381,41,17,24549,25659],"class_list":["post-44542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-article","tag-beat-swiss-abroad-community","tag-emigrants","tag-family","tag-history","tag-production-type-original","tag-society","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland","tag-user-need-connect-me","tag-user-need-inspire-me"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116351234402154101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}