We have had several inquiries into the origins of our family and our name, all we know so far is written below. Most of the content was provided to me by my Grandfather, August Rippstein, before he passed away. Thanks to another Rippstein who found this site, I have added information that comes from a book written by Louis Rippstein.

A couple generations ago, it used to be the case that once a family had taken root in one place in Switzerland, they would stay in the near vicinity for many generations. During the past 30 years, this has changed. This change is evident in my family tree.

The name 'Rippstein' has been around since at least 1518. At least, that's how far back we have been able to trace the written documents of the "Rippstein" name. The name originated in the village of Kienberg in the state of Solothurn, Switzerland. (For those of you that are not familiar with Swiss History, Switzerland officially became its own country in 1291.) For several generations, the Rippstein family was involved in farming. In those days, they had big "raps" plantations and "muellsteine" mills. The Raps (plants that produced oil for cooking) were rubbed (Riebi, from the verb reiben, in Swiss-German) between two stones. This process of rubbing the Raps between stones is where the name Rippstein comes from...."Rub" + "Stone" > "Riebe" + "Stein" > "Rippstein".

My great, great, great grandfather was not only a farmer but also owned the mail depot between the main city of Aarau and Kienberg. He owned horses and buggies to transport the mail, and had up to 10 horses ready at all times as well as wagons like in the US's "wild" west.

My great grandfather was the first in his family to not only have a big farm; he also made a 4 year apprentice to become a brick and stone home builder (masonry). In 1910, he sold the farm in Kienberg (Canton Solothurn) and moved to Sins in the canton of Aargau, where he purchased a much bigger farm. He then built a new home and stables on it. He established a "modern" farming company with every available machine to make work easier, faster and more profitable. He was the first son to leave his hometown of Kienberg and to go his own way. His father did not speak to him until shortly before he died, that's how upset he was about the move of his son. My great grandfather was the first in the family to attend the Technical University in Zurich. He decided that he wanted to be a builder with architectural and engineering knowledge. He was very successful in building houses, but also still had the farm. This proved to be a disaster in 1919 when he lost all the farming animals to an epidemic called "hoof and mouth" disease. A lot of money was lost at that time and so neither my grandfather nor his brother wanted to continue with the old family tradition of farming. In 1924 they sold the farm and moved to Luzern, where my great grandfather had a very successful construction business and his sons attended schools.

My great grandfather had two sons and one daughter. One of the sons went into engineering, this is my grandfather. My grandfather became a very successful salesman for the only Swiss truck manufacturer "Saurer". He worked at Saurer as their top salesman and manager for 38 years. Saurer was sold to Mercedes 2 years after my grandfather's retirement. My grandfather spent a lot of his retirement traveling...he even spent time as the President of Touring Club Suisse (TCS). His brother went into the travel business and ran a travel agency in Luzern. Unfortunately, he died at the early age of 58. The sister married and had one child. She stayed in Luzern and is presently still there.

My father (Heinz Rippstein) and mother (Elisabeth Rippstein) were the first generation of this branch of Rippstein's to immigrate to the United States of America. Why did they do this? Well, after several visits to the U.S. for business relations with Syntex in Cupertino, California, they came to like the sunny California weather and also felt that business opportunities in the U.S. were much better than in the rather small and old-fashioned Switzerland. They came to California with a dream and succeeded. They started a small company that researched, manufactured and sold, X-Ray Diffraction Equipment. With their continued effort to offer only the best and most advanced instruments they succeeded to become a well known and respected name within the world of diffraction. After 20 years of hard work, they sold the company in 1998. At the present, they are enjoying the fruits of their labor. While Heinz is living his "real dream", discovering the world as Captain of an intercontinental private Jet, Elisabeth is commuting between Europe and California, visiting friends and working on her passion of designing homes.

Heinz and Elisabeth had two sons. The younger son, Mark Rippstein (the manager of this website), married Carla Silos (born in Manila, Philippines) in 1996. Both spent many years working for Heinz and Elisabeth at their company and both graduated from Santa Clara University (Carla in Communications; Mark, Business Marketing). After the sale of the company, Mark worked for a couple dotcom companies (including HOTBIZ and HelloBrain) while Carla worked as a webmaster for an international travel agency. In 2002, Mark and Carla decided to start on an adventure of their own...moving to the state of Nidwalden in Switzerland. During that time, Mark and Carla's first child, Isabella, was born (April 2004). Mark and Carla never thought they would leave Switzerland, but the company Mark started working for shortly after arriving in Switzerland (DSB Media) decided to move to the Netherlands. With a newborn baby in hand and a strong love for Switzerland, Mark and Carla didn't want to leave but did find it difficult to find a postion in Switzerland where fluency in a local language wasn't required. Carla found an a position for Mark at Google that seemed tailormade for him, but it was located back in California. Both agreed that if they were ever to move back to the U.S., it would only be for this one company. Mark got the job and moved his family back to California. After only 18 months, Mark was able to convince Google that he should start a team in Europe and of course Mark chose his team to be located in Switzerland. Mark is now extremely honored to be a Senior Webmaster and manager of a strong team at Google. The elder brother, Mike Rippstein, married Lori Just (native Carlifornian) in 2001. They were the first to start the next next phase of the Rippstein Family....Talyor-Lee Rippstein entered this world in September 2002 and they followed up with Hannah in July 2004. They lived in Colorado for several years, but now live on the East Coast due to Lori's promotion as a prominent executive for a luxury hotel and resort company.

Update January 2004: I have received information from another Rippstein about a book the chronicles the history of Kienberg. I don't have access to this book, but I have no reason to believe my contact is lieing. According to this contact, Louis Rippstein wrote a book on Kienberg. The book claims that the name Ribstein goes back to 1288, 3 year's older than switzerland (1291). Bellow is a sample of the text from the book in German. The original is written in latin, translated by Dr. Anton Egloff, priest at Gipf-Oberfrick:

In der Herberge zu Wölflinswil versprechen am Fest der Aufnahme der seeligen Maria (15 August 1288) Heinrich Ribstein (Rippstein) von Kienberg und der Schmid von Schwörstadt, für den Erzabbau zu Wölflinswil den Adeligen von Kienberg und Zielemp alljährlich 110 Pfund und 80 Mark zu bezahlen, und zwar in je 4 Raten. Sollten sie mit der Zahlung säumen, so werden innerhalb der nächsten 8 Tage folgende Pesonen als Geiseln sich in die Herberge des Johannes, des Wirtes von Wölflinswil, begeben und sich auf Kosten jener gütlich tun, bis die Schuld beglichen wäre, innerhalb 13 Tagen ohne Zins, nachher mit Zins.

Burchard der Meier
v.Nöringen
Berchtold Biri
Rudolf Gruober
Rudolf Vriman
Johann der Wirt von Wil
Rudolf Lenso Johannes Graber
Conrad zem Nuwenhus
Hugo der Meier von Rothenfluh
Berchtold der Wirt von Stein
Burchard Sutor
Werner Bergmann von Wittnau

Dies geschah in Gegenwart des Leutpriesters Burchard von Wölflinswil, des Vikars Wernher, des Klerikers Heinrich von Bubendorf, sowie des Heinrich Löscher, Wernher von Nörinkon und vielen anderer glaubwürdiger Personen.

(Staatsarchiv Basel, Klosterarchive St. Leonhard A fol. 96.)

In the book there is also a picture of the old post office from Kienberg with Posthalter-Family Josef und Bertha Rippstein with her daughter about 1900. Later the post office was served by her daughter Pauline and her husband Richard Rippstein.

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