| The first written mentioning of the family name of Allenspach dates from the early 13th century. In those days family names came into being. Before, it was only for the members of nobility to have some sort of family names such as Rudolf von Habsburg. Cunradus de Alospach, mentioned in 1225, was a citizen of Ueberlingen (Germany) and Hainricus de Alospach is documented as a witness in Konstanz (Germany) in the year 1262. Both of them originated to all likelyhood from the near town of Allensbach.The last one is described as "miles" what means he was a knight. Thus he is one of the few aristocrats of the Allenspach family. In the 14th century the Allenspachs spread out from Konstanz to the neighbouring Thurgau, yet a Swiss canton. These settlers were called Ausburger. In Germany the family name Allenspach disappeared gradually, the last Allenspach of Konstanz living in the 19th century (Xaver Allenspach, carpenter, born in Konstanz 1812). | ||
| The Allenspachs today living are descendants of the Allenspachs who migrated from Konstanz. There are now 8 Allenspach trunks alive named after the citizen towns of their members: Amriswil TG, Bleiken TG, Erlen TG, Gottshaus-Muolen SG, Hemmiken BL, Kreuzlingen TG, Oberbüren SG und Schweizersholz TG. All these towns except Hemmiken are located in eastern Switzerland between the cities of St. Gallen und Konstanz. In the year 1997, Schweizersholz ceased as a political cummunality. Hence its citizens, including the members of the trunk Schweizersholz, now are citizens of Bischofszell TG or of Neukirch TG. Similarly the village of Bleiken is now part of the municipality of Sulgen TG. |  | ||
| The way of writing of the name Allenspach modified through the centuries. In the oldest documents (before 1400) there occur: de Alospach or latinized de Alospaco, von Alaspach, Alenspacher, Alaspacher, Alaspach, Alenspach. The prepositions "von" or "de" disappear in the 15th century since the connection with the locality Allensbach obviously no more longer was meaningful. Other writings which occured are Alispach, Allispach, Allaspach, Alespach, Allespach and Allenspach. At the end of the 19th century, the writing was uniformed to Alispach for the trunk Hemmiken and Allenspach for all the other trunks. The city on the Bodensee today is spelled Allensbach, (with b instead of p). | ||
| The geographical spreading of the Allenspachs for centuries was limitted to the eastern part of today Switzerland. The trunk Hemmiken is the only one to take roots in another part, that is in the canton of Baselland near the city of Basel. Attempts to become established in Germany generally failed after a few generations with the exception of the line Konstanz. Today, because of our high mobility, the Allenspachs are spread about the whole of Switzerland. As far as we know there are foreign lines of larger extension only in the United States. It is our aim of course to get acquainted with our members abroad too and to enter their data in our chronicle. | | ||
| Although the family name of Allenspach appears in the early 13th century, our family trees do not at all go back so far. The Ausburgers of Konstanz in the 14th century are well documented but later there occurred gaps in the sequence of generations, unfortunately. Schweizersholz is the "oldest" trunk. Its founding father Hennslin Alaspach lived from 1432 to 1517. The reason for the rich documentation of our ancestors is their settled form of existence. They mostly were feudal tenents of the abbot of St. Gallen, and so, they were bound to their court leets and had to pay tithe to their feudal lords. Had they been travelling people, they would not have occurred in official documents unless they had been law-breakers and thus had occurred in court records. | ||
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