On the train yesterday, through the beautiful fall colored Swiss countryside, I was delightfully surprised to speed through the small town of Elgg – It is located between Zurich and St Gallen. It seems the kind of town you’d feel comfortable owning a pet Jersey cow but I image you could get by with a St Bernard dog or two as well. Unfortunately, I wasn’t prepared with my camera, so the opportunity to capture a shot and share it with the ELGG community evaded me! But ELGG exists!
As an aside, we see online trumping the real world as I looked for a photo of Elgg Switzerland in Flickr and found 1476 tagged photos, but after looking at the first 20 screens full of thumbnails, I saw many pictures of elgg screenshots, elgg gatherings and Ben and Dave, but alas no REAL Elgg photos – so you just have to take my word for it that it exists!! Maybe the real world Elggians better get a photo up before they are eclipsed by the online world!
Terry
I could be wrong (my knowledge of German is rudimentary), but I think these have pictures of the original Elgg…
http://www.winteam.ch/versicherungsagenturen/elsau-elgg.html
http://www.swisscastles.ch/Zurich/schloss/elgg.html
http://www.standort-winterthur.ch/en/region-winterthur/elgg.html (I like the description: “Elgg is synonymous with quiet and relaxation, but also with the active village life in the countless associations.”)
It even has a flag – http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/ch-zh156.html
(for the keen, there are hockey and football teams, galleries and a fascinating story about a pig-like animal from pre-historic times – but that’s another story)
Google image search is fascinating – I am intrigued by other Elggs, such as Bob von Elgg (http://www.bfsp.net/about.html) and the Elgg family from Bad Säckingen (http://blog.flaeche-schub.de/2007/03/der-elgg-geistert-durchs-buro.html). More sinisterly, in the very little known game world of the Drow of the Underdark (I kid ye not) Elgg becomes a verb meaning to kill, slay or destroy – see http://drowoftheunderdar.20m.com/photo5.html
Hi Terry & Jon,
Searched my name on Google and found your site. Nice that you visited Elgg. I’ve been there only once,in 1982. My entire last name is Werdmuller von Elgg. The Werdmuller von Elgg’s own the castle/schloss in Elgg.
Jon… Thanks for the Elgg links an happy trails in future travel.
Bob
Hello to all! My name is Tricia M. Werdmuller von Elgg. My father is Eric C. C. Werdmuller von Elgg. It was wonderful seeing pictures of Elgg as I have not been there as of yet. It is beautiful and I look forward to seeing it personally. Thank you for the insight.
Hi Tricia,
That’s my Uncle you are writing about, my name is Joh Werdmuller-von-Elgg and I primncipally come from Australia (Sydney) but currently live in Thailand.
If you get a chance, drop me a line or two from time to time.
Cheers
Joh W…
My mother is a werdmuller von ellg, I have been to elgg two times in my life, I would love to go back one day with my son and show him.
HI YVONNE,
MAY I ASK WHO’S DAUGHTER ARE YOU? WHAT IS YOUR MAM’S NAME?
I’M FRANCINA ERNST-POETOEHENA BORN IN INDONESIA(JAKARTA).
MY GRANDMOTHER IS IDA MATHILDA WILHELMINA CHOMPFF-WERDMULLER VON ELGG, SHE WAS THE YOUNGEST SISTER OF OTTO.
I’VE VISIT SCHLOSS ELGG TO PUT SOME FLOWERS AT OOM OTTO’S CRIPT FOR TANTE ESTER. SHE PASSED AWAY TOO.
WELL I HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOMEDAY.
I’M HERE IN WESTMINSTER CALIFORNIA.
LOVE,
FRANCINA.
Hi,
My name is Werdmuller von Elgg, from The Hague, Netherlands.
My mom told me that everyone with the same name is related.
Thank you for the pictures, I hope I can visit Elgg soon.
Heh; two years later, I just discovered this post.
My full last name is also Werdmuller von Elgg, which presumably means I’m related to the commenters above (Otto, referenced above, was my grandfather). I named Elgg after the town in Switzerland almost by accident: I’d bought elgg.net for my personal email but hadn’t put a website there, and when I first wrote the embryonic software it seemed as decent a place as any to put it.
These days, of course, I’m no longer working on Elgg the software (although I still work in the same field). I’m planning a new open source project, but in the meantime, I also very much want to head back to Switzerland and reconnect with my family roots. Not to mention promote the town online a bit, to make amends for swamping it in the Google rankings …
Hello, my son came across a blog that you commented on. My mother is Detty Werdmuller Von Elgg the daughter of Otto Richard Werdmuller Von Elgg. We have set up a Facebook page to reconnect with the family. I sent you an invite hope to hear from you soon and learn more about you!
My great grandmother was Marie Werdmuller von Elgg, and her daughter Theodora was my grandmother. I was hoping that I could get in contact with some of the other Werdmuller von Elgg’s to find out more about the family?? I am also from Sydney Australia. If anyone cares to help me out, please email fiona.whiley@gmail.com
One day I hope to be able to go to the castle in Elgg that my grandmother always told me about!!
I, yoy werdmüller von Elgg woul’d really like to get to know my family..
My great great great grandmother was Maria Salomea Werdmuller van Elgg (Venlo 22 august 1794 – Rotterdam 3 march 1854). Her father was Hans Johan Coenraad Werdmuller von Elgg (I have no date of birth or death) Does anybody know who his ancestors were?
I see my mother beat me to this thread by about 5 years but I thought I might elaborate since she has not re-posted. My mother (Yvonne Gatewood) is the daughter of Romee Werdmuller von Elgg. Romee is the daughter of Otto as mentioned above. My memory of her family is vague but I have met some of them early in life. The one’s i can remember are tante Day and Camella, my grandmothers sisters, Detto her brother and I have a brief memory of Otto early in my childhood (though I could be confusing him and Detto).
I’ve heard a lot about Elgg and the castle but never been there myself. I definitely intend to make that journey one day. The next time I speak with my grandmother I will let her know this site exists and ask her to post, or I will post in proxy. I also checked a box to notify me by e-mail upon comments so if you have any questions, let me know.
I also have in my possession two original paintings, one a self-portrait of Otto and the other an image of the castle. I will look at getting links to those put up as well.
I just came upon this thread and hope it’ll keep going, however intermittently. I am the above referenced Otto’s son.
My grandmother always called herself Day. I wonder if she was Brandon’s tante Day, from above comments….
Hello Brandon,
Thank you for your family information that I’ve ask for From Yvonne Gatewood ( your Mom ). So she is a daughter from my Oom( uncle) Otto and his first wife. And his second wife is Tante ( aunt ) Ester.
They both use to live in Atascadero here in California.
Before they moved up north, to live closer to there kids. Like I have mention on my note above, my grandmother Ida is the youngest sister of Otto and Marie ( we nicknamed her as Tante Maatje ) she use to live close by our house in Indonesia on the Jalan
Pekalongan. Well anyway, thank you again. And so sorry to see this page just now. Much love, your cousin. Francina. Oh by the way, I’ve met Detto, when he came For a short vacation. Ps. I’m on Facebook too.
It seems curious to me that every 4 months or so, I get a long lost member of the Elgg family posting a comment to my post 8 years ago. If you read my original post, you can see that I just passed through Elgg on a train, that didn’t even stop at Elgg!
I know Elgg from the social software (elgg.org) of the same name. But I now realize that the extended family of Elgg, wants to connect to each other. I just wish they would establish a web site or Facebook home, and not use my web site!! Though I must say, I hope the post helped at least one Mr or Ms. Elgg find their long lost cousins!!