Places of birth that vary for an individual from one record to another can be confusing. There are times where the variant locations are simply mistakes for one reason or another.
Other times those varying places can be a clue. Perhaps country boundaries changed over time and the person was giving the current country their place of birth was located in. Perhaps they were giving the country at the time when they were born. Maybe their village of birth was close to a line between two countries and when asked where their village was located they simply said “close to Switzerland.” It is also possible the family moved quite a bit and the person did not know exactly where they were born.
They may have settled in an area where many Germans settled and, as a native of Switzerland who spoke German, it was assumed that they were born in Germany as well.
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