Swiss-born Elise Cottier

[frances-b]

I am trying to research my Swiss-born great grandmother Elise Cottier.  She appears on the 1881 census age 23 working as a lady’s maid in Yorkshire, with a birthplace of Daillene (F) Switzerland.

She married George William Mander in London in March 1891; her father is shown as Augustus Cottier, occupation woodman, and one of the witnesses is Marie Louisa Cottier, who I have found on the the 1881 census age 27 also working as a lady’s maid.  I am working on the premise that Elise and Marie Louisa are sisters.

Neither George William nor Elise are on the 1891 census (although they may be somewhere in Warwickshire where their first child is born in September that year ).  They are back in London on the 1901 census, on which Elise’s birthplace is simply Switzerland with British added by the enumerator, and they had moved to Essex by the 1911 census. Elise died in Suffolk in 1948.

So . . . three queries

Are there records of Swiss nationals travelling to the UK in the 1870s-1880s? (And was there a particular cachet in having a Swiss lady’s maid?)

Would Elise have been naturalised British by virtue of her marriage or would there be a separate record for this?

Swiss records – I understand these are held locally (by canton?) according to the family’s initial origins.  What is the best way to track down where her birth and any other family records are held?

I'd appreciate any pointers in the right direction(s).

[KGarrad]

Could her birth place be Daillens?

Daillens is in the canton of Vaud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daillens

[nanny jan]

Hi,

Welcome to RootsChat. 

FamilySearch.org have some records from Switzerland:

https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list?page=1&countryId=1927039


Good Luck!


Nanny Jan

[frances-b]

Could her birth place be Daillens?

Yes, I think you may be right.  The last character on the original of the census is a bit of a squiggle - could be e, s or even z! 

Thank you, it's a starting point.

[frances-b]

FamilySearch.org have some records from Switzerland

Thanks nanny jan. I'm going to have to brush up my schoolgirl French for some of these!

[frances-b]

Well, I think I've answered one of my questions.  I found a useful summary of the history of British nationality and naturalisation on a .gov.uk website (not sure if I'm allowed to post the link).

Basically, the Naturalisation Act 1844 provided that a foreign woman who married a British subject acquired British subject status automatically on marriage. This doesn't appear to have been altered in the 1847 and 1870 Acts, although the 1870 Act changed the rules so that a British subject woman marrying a foreign man now lost her British subject status on marriage.

I have had a look at the List of Aliens notices in The Gazette. They are overwhelmingly men - in two years of notices I found one married couple and two women.  I'm inclined to think that Elise was never formally naturalised but became a British subject on her marriage to George William in 1891.