By Peter Hossli (text and research) Photo of Steve Jobs: Matthew Yohe Infographic: Priska Wallimann
Only a handful of people have truly changed the world. Among them are the philosopher Karl Marx, the religious founders Jesus and Mohammed – and Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple. With the iPhone, he created a device that dominates our daily lives. In the podcast Hard Fork’s ranking of the most important inventions in history, it ranks right behind fire and electricity.
Steve Jobs has Swiss roots.
His ancestors came from Neuenhof in the Aargau’s Limmat valley. In the mid-19th century, they emigrated to the United States as a twelve-member family with state assistance. Undoubtedly an emigration with far-reaching consequences.
There were hints of Swiss ancestry, but they were mostly incorrect, vague, or unsubstantiated. Until now, no thorough investigation had been conducted.
That has now changed. Documents from archives, emigration statistics, credit ledgers, parish records, genealogical research from the Mormons, and passenger lists describe the origins of one of the most influential figures of our time.
Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco in 1955. His biological mother, Joanne Schieble, had conceived him with political science student Abdulfattah Jandali. She put the boy up for adoption because her strict Catholic parents forbade her marriage to the Syrian immigrant.
Californians Paul and Clara Jobs adopted young Steve. At twenty-one, he founded Apple. The rest is business history, told in films and books.
The Swiss part remained almost completely unknown. Likely also because the name of Jobs’ ancestors was changed upon entry to the United States and henceforth sounded German rather than Swiss. They were not named Schieble, but Schibli – a name still common in Neuenhof today; the Schiblis are domiciled there.
The story begins with Josef Schibli, who was born in Neuenhof on July 16, 1795, as the still-Latin entries in the parish register attest. He fathered at least ten children; first with Verena Vogler, then after her death with Anna Maria Haas.
One of them – Caspar – was born on October 18, 1848, as his gravestone in Wisconsin confirms. Caspar Schibli was Steve Jobs’ great-grandfather.
At that time, Neuenhof near Baden had around 400 inhabitants, a farming village too poor to feed large families. Like many others, the Schiblis lived in modest circumstances. After crop failures, stagnant wages, and growing poverty, many sought their fortune in America or Australia.
Between 1850 and 1855, over 8,000 people left the Aargau – roughly four percent of the population. To ease the burden on poor relief funds, many communities supported emigrants. The Schiblis received 1,715 francs from the municipality of Neuenhof and 360 francs from the Canton of Aargau, as documented in the records of the Aargau State Archives. The 2,075 francs in emigration assistance equates to 32,330 francs today.
The Schiblis took ten children and their entire fortune with them. According to the Register of Emigrants from the District of Baden, it totaled 1,142 francs.
In addition, Josef Schibli applied for a loan of 840 francs; 600 were disbursed, as documented. That corresponds to a current value of 9,100 francs and was meant to cover transportation and ship passage at the time.
It was an arduous journey that had to be carefully planned. The railroad network was barely developed, and automobiles didn’t exist yet. For good money, numerous emigration agencies organized routes, tickets, and formalities for emigrants. They maintained offices in Basel, and some even had representatives in New York.
The Schiblis likely made the three kilometers from Neuenhof to Baden on foot in late summer of 1853. From there, they traveled by stagecoach to Basel, interrupted by stops to change horses. In Basel, they boarded a steamboat that carried them downriver on the Rhine to Cologne, from where the Schiblis likely continued by railroad. Since 1843, a train connection had existed from Cologne via Aachen, Liège, and Brussels to Antwerp.
In early September, the family reached the Belgian port city. There lay anchored the sailing ship Uncas. It regularly transported freight and passengers to New York. The passenger list, now preserved on microfilm, shows: the Schiblis departed from Antwerp on September 4, 1853.
With a displacement of 422 tons, the Uncas was a small but robust transatlantic vessel. Depending on wind and weather, the crossing took 35 to 50 days.
After weeks at sea, the Uncas reached New York harbor in late fall. It likely docked at South Street Pier in Manhattan, where European ships arrived daily. Between cargo crates, coal dust, and sailors, Josef and Anna Maria Schibli and their children set foot on American soil for the first time.
Like all passengers, they had to navigate the formalities of the New York immigration authorities at the pier. Names, origins, and destinations were recorded. An official wrote down the family name Schibli as he understood it – namely Schieble.
Under their new name, a new life began for the Neuenhof residents in a young country full of possibilities.
They did not remain in New York but moved to where other Swiss had already settled: to Wisconsin on Lake Michigan.
The route at that time ran via a Hudson steamboat to Albany and by railroad to Buffalo. With a paddle steamer, they crossed Lake Erie and reached Detroit. Once again, a train took them to Chicago.
Many Swiss were drawn to Wisconsin in those years. The young state had joined the Union in 1848 and actively recruited settlers in Europe. Fertile soil, forests, lakes, and a German-speaking community made Wisconsin the preferred destination for Germans and Swiss. From the 1840s onward, settlements emerged with people from the Aargau, the cantons of Glarus and Bern.
From Chicago, the Schiebles likely traveled by steamship to Sheboygan, a small, growing port city where several Swiss families already lived. Here ended a journey of over 7,000 kilometers – from Neuenhof on the Limmat to Sheboygan on Lake Michigan.
Aargau residents had become Americans.
Caspar Schibli adopted American citizenship as Casper Schieble. He worked first as a farmer, later as a carpenter. On September 12, 1878, he married Anna Acker. They had several children; according to Mormon genealogical records, there were eleven.
The second youngest was named Arthur, born on October 19, 1899, as confirmed by an American Army draft card. The family lived in a small house at 1316 North Eighth Street in Sheboygan, a short walk from Lake Michigan.
When Casper, born in Neuenhof, died on June 5, 1919, the Sheboygan Press wrote in an obituary of a universally respected man of great character, a family man whose life was marked by hard work and care, always closely connected to the Catholic Church.
His son Arthur moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, 100 kilometers away, in 1932. He became an entrepreneur, first founding an engraving business and later a fur farm, which he ran successfully. Arthur embodied the second generation of American Schiebles: born in the United States, ambitious, capable, and rooted in the Midwest.
He married Irene Ziegler, had two daughters, and led – like his father before him – a life of faith. When he died in 1955 after a serious illness, the newspaper announced the death of a respected citizen.
In the Sheboygan Press obituary of August 10, 1955, there appears a quiet footnote: mentioned is a grandson – the illegitimate child of his daughter Joanne, born in February of that same year.
This child was Steve Jobs.
He did not grow up with the Schiebles but in California and was destined to change the world. Shortly before his death, Arthur Schieble urged his daughter to give the baby up for adoption. She agreed on one condition: the boy had to be adopted by academics. Paul and Clara Jobs were selected.
Only afterward did Joanne Schieble learn that Clara had never completed college and Paul hadn’t even finished high school. She initially refused to sign the papers but gave in when the couple promised her that the boy would one day attend college.
They kept their word and spent their savings to make college possible for Steve. After six months, he dropped out, slept at friends’ houses, collected deposit bottles, and walked miles to eat at the Hare Krishna temple. Still, Jobs later said, I was fortunate. I found early what I loved.
With two friends, he founded Apple Computer in his parents’ garage, named after the Beatles’ record label. Today, the company is worth over four trillion dollars.
Jobs began searching for his biological mother in 1986. He found her in Los Angeles. At their meeting, Jobs learned he had a sister: novelist Mona Simpson (68). His biological parents had indeed eventually married and had another child.
The iPhone inventor died in 2011 from cancer, at the same age as his grandfather.
Why did the Swiss connection go unnoticed for so long? Because Joanne Schieble was often referred to as German-American, and the media repeated this designation from one source to another. Even the renowned Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson (73) called Schieble’s family German. Certainly: Casper and Arthur married women of German descent. Because of the German-sounding surname, the Swiss roots and the name Schibli fell into obscurity.
Until a reporter delved into the archives – and found the evidence.