There are a seemingly infinite range of zither family instruments, the autoharp being only one branch of the family. Try looking at some of the many zither sites - there was one that seemed to have a hundred variations.

The combination of bowed & strummed in one instrument seems to have been a great deal from the Marx instrument company of Michigan. Their "pianolin" "ukelin" "violin-uke" and who knows what other ---lin names, would have one section set up with groups of strings that would be tuned to a chord, and some strings on the side that were meant to be bowed. They are set up much like the strings on a bowed psaltery, though they tended to arranged so that one string would serve for two notes (think of the way a string on a hammer dulcimer provides a different note on each side of the bridge) These date from the same period when the autoharp came to life.

I have a ukelin hanging above my fireplace that I don't play - it takes half an hour to tune and stays in tune for about 5 min, so I just enjoy playing bowed psaltery some of the time and Autoharp most of the time. It would be nifty if a luthier decided to try making these again: there are folks out there experimenting with the parameters of zitherthings. A friend brought back a picture from a Cathedral in France of an instrument about the size of a hammer dulcimer that had 12 groups of 7 strings making up named chords, and a separate set of about 3 octaves of individual strings to play melody (that were underlaid with a graphic of a piano keyboard and staff notes) No clue what it was called, so it's a Frenchzitherthing till I learn otherwise!

A bowed psaltery sound is likely what caught your ear, and is fine for accompanying singing, (I have 3) and if you get flashy with that you can have it braced and play with two bows, or pluck a string while bowing another. Have fun finding something that works for you.

Joanne in Cleveland