Daily AncestorHeimatschein
A Heimatschein was a certificate of origin issued by a person's home community, proving their right of residence there; it is best known from Switzerland.
The Heimatschein came from the Heimatgemeinde, the community where a person held citizenship rights, which was not always where they were born or lived. Anyone settling in another Swiss community had to deposit it with the local office. Austria issued Heimatscheine until 1938, and in what is now Hesse they were issued in the 1800s and as late as the 1960s.
For a Swiss emigrant, the Heimatschein names the home community, and that is where the family's records are kept, even if the family had lived elsewhere for generations.
Look it up: old jobs, causes of death, Latin, abbreviations, nicknames and more.
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Heimatschein." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/german/heimatschein. Last checked 2026-10-28.