The Hostettler (Swiss spelling today) family originated, perhaps in the 1300s or 1400s, in the Schwarzenburg, Switzerland area about 30 kilometers southwest of the capital of Bern. Some of them became a part of the Anabaptist reform movement in the 1600s. These Anabaptists, or Swiss Brethren, tried to follow the Bible and restore the biblical church, which they understood to be a believers' church made up of members baptized as adults upon their confession of faith in Jesus and who lived out the ethic of love and nonviolence taught by Jesus. Due to brutal religious persecution by the state churches, both Catholic and Reformed, our ancestors along with many others left Switzerland. The man we now believe was the father of the immigrant Jacob left his native Schwarzenburg area in the late 1600s and settled near Echery near St. Marie-aux-Mines in Alsace (now in France), where Jacob was born in 1712.

The Swiss people, including our early ancestors, first came to live in a Roman province called "Helvetica", which was settled by a Germanic people called the "Alemanns" during the fifth and sixth centuries AD. Due to the passionate work of Irish Missionaries such as Saint Colomban and Saint Gall (for whom the Swiss city of Saint-Gallen is named) many Swiss were converted to Christianity. The territory in which they lived formed a part of the empire of Charlemagne in the ninth century, while in the tenth century Muslim and Magyar raiders cloaked the region in darkness. 
      Most scholars consider the foundation of the Swiss nation to have been laid in the year 1291, when the cantons of Uri, Schmyz, Nidwalden (the Forest Cantons) and Oberwalden formed a league of mutual defense against the Habsburgs of Austria which was to become the foundation of the Swiss Confederation. By 1353, our forefathers became citizens of the Confederation when Luzern, Zurich, Glarus, Bern and Zug were added.
      Until about 1100 A.D. most people in Europe had only one name. As the population increased, it became awkward to live in a village where, perhaps, half the males were named John and the another sizeable percentage named William and so forth.
      And so, in order to distinguish one John from another, a second name was needed. There were four primary sources for these second names. They came from the bearer's: occupation, town or area of residence (toponymical), parent's name (patronymical) or some personal, distinguishable characteristic he may have had.
      The surname Hostetler and its numerous variations are anglicized forms of the Swiss surname Höchstetter, which is of toponymical origin. These types of surnames were often attached to, or assumed by people who had moved away from their home towns but had become identified with the towns, and subsequently name after them. Many towns and villages are named Hochstadt, Hochstedt and Höchstetten, but the most likely town to have inspired the name of our family is Höchstetten, which is located in Switzerland west of Luzern. The proper noun Höchstetten consists of two distinct elements, "höch" and "stetten". The initial element, "höch", came from the Middle High German "hoehede" indicating "height". The element "stetten" derives from the Old High German "stat" which originially denoted a "place or location" but later came to mean "town" (in today's German "stadt"). Thus the meaning of the place name Höchstetten is "high place". The "er" suffix of the surname indicates "person from", and therefore the meaning of the surname Höchstetter is consequently "person from Höchstetten".
      In certain situations, the name Höchstetter may be of geographic or locative origin, making reference to some feature of the land found near the home of the original name bearer. The word "Hostett" remains a live Swiss word which refers to a "Baumgarten" or a "cultivated garden where trees grow". With this in mind, the meaning of the surname could be "person from the high place" or "person from the tree garden".
      Another hypothesis of the name origin is the derivative of the word "Hofstatt" which is a french dialectic word which meant "servants to a wealthy, honored family living in a castle". As the Hostettlers of Wahlern locale had written their surname many times, through the ages, as "Hofstettler", the origin could possibly have been of reference to peasants serving the Hofstatt of Wahlern.

For a more accurate and detail explanation of the origin of our H/H/H Family and Name, please click here to read what two of the most notable Hochstetler historians, Daniel E. Hochstetler and J.Virgil Miller, have to say.
      The surnames of Switzerland, in general, reflect the linguistic diversity of the country, which has four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh (the latter being a language which is derived from Latin and is only used by 1% of the population). Within this structure of diverse languages, there exists a wide variety of local and regional dialects with the Swiss-German dialects remaining the most popular even in modern day.
      We can see the reflections of the interaction of the various languages and dialects with the variations in the spelling of our own surname (i.e. Hochstettler, Hochstedler, Hostetter, Hostettler, Hostetler and so on).

There are also some look-alike names that may have a common Swiss origin but represent different family lines here, in the USA. For example, there was formed in 1985 the Hostetter Family Association which publishes a quarterly newsletter called "Die Familie Hostetter". These Hostetters were introduced to America by Jacob and Anna Hostetter who settled in Lancaster County, PA in 1712, by Oswald and Maria Hostetter who settled in Lancaster County, PA in 1732, and by three Hostetter brothers (Christian, Ulrich and Nicholas) who arrived in 1749. Although they were Mennonites, most of the name variants of their line of Hostetters end in TER versus the ending of LER which seems to identify most of the variant endings of the descendants of our Hochstetler line. More information on the Hostetters can be requested to David J. Bachman, 1409 Plaza Apartments, Lebanon, PA 17042-7348 (or phone 717-273-4377).

Although online information on Hochstetler genealogy is limited, there is an interesting biography of the immigrant Jacob's great-grandson, Joseph Hostetler who was known as the "boy preacher" because he was ordained at a relatively young age. Reference made to Joseph's ancestry being from Germany refers to his maternal line, not the Hostetler line (his mother's father, Anthony Hardman, was German).

Of Jacob Hochstetler's relatives who remained in Europe, we know of a few persons who came to the U.S. later in the 1800s and even in the past half century. These were predominately persons who descended from Jacob's nephew Isaac Hochstetler who was an Amish Mennonite minister in Germany and in Alsace (France).

The field of Heraldic Study is an imprecise science that is fraught with vendors of questionable  goods whose foundation is built on the inability to verify beyond question the hundreds of thousands of Coats of Arms that exist in the world. This linked Adobe .pdf file presents four examples of Crests and Coats of Arms that were hypothetically awarded to members of our forefathers in Switzerland. There was as much research and verification done as was possible, which indicates that the use of these familial symbols should be exercised with delicate caution as regards their absolute authenticity.