by Fran Mason, Australia

Johan Gaspar Janner from Bosco Gurin emigrated in October 1860 to Australia, Victoria, Stawell. We have only found out about our roots over the past 10 years or so when my brother started looking into our family tree. Before that we believed that we were Swiss Italian.

Names have continued through the family, almost unintentionally! (eg Peter, John, Jasper, etc)

We are in contact with a distant cousin after meeting her when we visited Bosco Gurin in 2004. She has since visited us here in Australia.

We did not expect to see palm trees growing in Locarno, also so many grapevines growing as we travelled by train from Geneva. The wonderful use of stone and granite on the houses in Bosco Gurin and neighbouring villages. Lovely summer weather (we were there in June/July).

To know that many buildings we saw in Bosco Gurin would have been very much the same 150 years ago, when our great-grandfather left the village. The wildflowers on the hillsides. The height of the mountains!!

We would like to know more about the story of emigration from villages such as Bosco-Gurin. As my cousin tells us, approx 50 young men, including my great-grandfather, were given (a loan of?) $1,000 CHF and sent on their way from that village alone.