By 1787, we would expect that a record should exist for virtually everyone born in Switzerland. The trick is to figure out where to look. Almost all the genealogical records in Switzerland are local. There are almost no indexes that would help, even at the cantonal level.
The time-tested method to get past this difficulty is to search the American records very, very thoroughly for three facts: (1) the full name of the ancestor; (2) the exact date of birth; (3) the name of the town where he was born or where he came from. Occasionally the names of close relatives can substitute for some of this information. The clues you need are often found by searching in all available censuses, naturalization records, wills, deeds (also check federal land patents), court records, newspapers (including German-language newspapers in the United States), cemetery records, church records, family papers, and anything else you can find. Not all of the records you need will be found on the internet. Don't be afraid to use the microfilms of the Family History Library!
Emigrants from Switzerland in this period would have carried some sort of identity papers as well as baptismal certificates. These are frequently passed down in the family, so be sure to contact all branches of the family. Some passport application records were kept in Switzerland at the cantonal level, though they appear to be scattered, incomplete, and have never been indexed.
Some genealogists recommend using the "Swiss family names book" (on-line edition at:
http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/famn/index.php ) to identify the town where a family had hereditary citizenship. It is not complete, but for the period after 1800, it can be helpful. What do we find in this case? There are very few "Wing-" names, none that look promising. There are also some "Weng-" names, notably Wenger, which is found all over the canton of Bern, as well as some in Basel-Landschaft and Valais. Wenger is so common, in fact, that it would be nearly impossible to check the church records for all the possible parishes, and even then, without the exact date of birth, you wouldn't be able to prove that any particular Christian Wenger you found was really your ancestor, and not someone else with the same name and born about the same time.
If you eventually discover that your ancestor came from a particular parish in the Canton of Bern, the next step is to study the church records of that parish. They have been digitized on the FamilySearch.org web site, but they are not indexed. Due to contractual restrictions imposed by the cantonal archives, the images can only be viewed through (1) an LDS account on FamilySearch, or (2) on a computer at your local Family History Center. For most of us, that means spending time at the Family History Center, and as long as you are there, you may as well spend the $8 and order the microfilm, which is a easier to use!
John McCoy
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RealMac@aol.com)