scandinavian ancestry

For many, many years I was looking for my maternal grandmothers brother. His name was Nils Peter Ahlström and he emigrated in 1888. I could did not find him in the US. No matter what I did I could not trace him down. Still today I believe he eventually ended up in Canada or some rural area that was forgotten in the 1900 census. I don't have the answer and maybe I will never know. But thanks to a note in the household examinations I could find him in the Swedish court records from 1935 when he was declared dead (postum date 31/12 1908) by his family.

I still don't know why they had to declare him as dead, they simply said he was not heard from since 1908 and that's how his family decided that he must have died that year. He had nearly 4000 SEK in his Swedish bank account. That was a good sum of cash in those days.

From this piece of paper, a very simple piece of paper, I read that also his younger brother Per emigrated! And so did his half brother (I did not even know he existed!) Jöns. That was a surprise.

Maybe they both tried to find him? And on this piece of paper they were both listed as 'not heard from' and 'address in Amerika unknown'. I started another research and I soon found that Per and his wife Clara left Sweden in 1906, headed for Bloomington. Why Bloomington if there was no connection? I could not see a clear connection. And I later found them, Per & Clara , living in Delawan, Tazewell, IL. I found them in the 1910, 1920 and 1930's census, in the same place. They lived there until Per's  death in 1946 so the 'address unknown' in the court records was not really true! They never had any children. 

So now I'm still puzzled about Nils Peter, I want to  find out what happened to him, if he really died in 1908 or later, maybe even earlier. And I also want to know what happened to brother Jöns. More about that some other time.

Bengta Sonesdotter Born in 1862 on October 20 in Hörröd, Farstorp, (L) Sweden. She married Nils Månsson in 1889-07-24 Sterling, Whiteside, IL  He was born in 1859, March 19 in Hörröd, Farstorp (L), Sweden. I did not know about Bengta (Betty) and her immigration until the day I started to find out what happened to the siblings of my grandmothers' father, Pehr Christensson. His brother Sone, born in 1824, marrried a Johanna Pehrsdotter in 1855 in Boa, Farstorp, Sweden. Their daughter Bengta became Betty Munson in the US.  It took me a while to confirm the details and as I was sure to have found her, I learned that she died in 1907. Nils died in 1905. I know what happened to a few of the children. Arthur Herbert Munson, born in 1899 and the youngest of the siblings, died in 1980 in Wyoming. Click here to see the family; Betty Munson from Farstorp

I also recently learned that Bengta had two daughters, born out-of-wedlock in Farstorp. One was named Ida and the youngest, born in 1887, was named Anna Wiktoria. I'm now trying to find out what happened to them as I believe they grew up in Farstorp. I'm sure Betty's intention was to get them over one day, once she was settled in her new country. That obviously never happened.

Update; September 26, 2008 - A sad, sad story.

I got some articles last week and it was quite a depressing reading. It's a sad, sad story. Apparently Nils (Nels) died of pneumonia, on December 26, in 1905. He had been ill for a whole year and financially this was too hard for the family. When Nils died he did not even have bedding to keep him warm. The children were clean but starving and of course heartbroken. It had been days since they had a real meal. The people of Sterling did all they could to help Betty. Three local ladies took charge of the household. They made sure the children were sent to school, nice and tidy and not hungry. That way Betty could get a job to make some money. Three of the children were taken care of by relatives. Two came to Nebraska, to relatives of Nils (still have to find out who they were), a married couple without children. One was taken care of by a relative of Betty (still don't know who that was), and that might have been baby Arthur (mentioned above). Thank's to Michelle Moore, I know more about him and his life. He married a Stella Ruth Lavergne, and lived in Wyoming until the end. It is unknown if they ever had children.

Unfortunately all this was too hard for Betty, losing her husband, not being able to care for the children and the economy. She died in 1907.  The death notice said she was born in Stockholm, Sweden on October 20, 1862. Obviously her children did not quite know where she was born.

I know that Oscar Munson stayed in Sterling. Mabel Munson came back and married a Roy Myers. He was a local barber. They had one son and she divorced Roy in 1931. August once saved a little boy from drowning and that made some newspaper articles. August married a Loretta Fagan, and lived happily ever after. One of their son's, Carl E Munson died just recently.

Nils Hägg (Hegh) is probably my 'favorite' ancestor of all. He was the son of Lars Hägg (Hegh),  who was a Swedish soldier (a so called Svenskryttare) who was sent down to Skåne some time around 1679, along with his father and a brother Jöns, to 'keep the peace' in the area. I don't know much about his father Lars other than that he came from Västergötland, somewhere. He got married to Pernilla Pehrsdotter in 1697 in Farstorp. And she is most probably not from there. Lars had arrived from neighboring parish Finja the year before that so my belief is that they met there. And so Lars and his brother were sent out to war in 1701, to Pomerania, and they never returned. Nils was 3 years old at that time and neither his mother Pernilla nor his auntie Karna got remarried. They shared roof and life  until they passed away.

I think Pernilla got into trouble for not following the traditions, as a soldiers widow. Normally they'd re-marry, but only if they had a death certificate to proof they were widowed. Pernilla did not get married again. Maybe because she couldn't or maybe because she didn't want to. 

Pernilla raised Nils all by herself, and she died in 1736. By then Nils was a respected village citizen, he became a soldier too, and a farmer, and he married twice. First time he was a very young soldier, in 1720, he  married Sidza Ericksdotter. She was a soldiers widow, born in 1680. And as such she had been married to two soldiers before Nils...Those were the days.

Nils and Sidza (Sissa) had two sons, Per Nilsson Hägg and Lars Nilsson Hägg. Both became soldiers, of course. Sidza died in 1738, 58 years old.

The following year, in 1739, Nils got married to Una Sörensdotter. She was a young maiden, born in 1716. She was the daughter of the miller Sören Nilsson of Gammalstorps Mölla (Mill).  They had 3 daughters, two of them survived Nils. And one of them, Sissa, 'my Sissa', my connection to life, was born in 1743. 

Sissa is one of many 'links' to the soldiers in my past and present.

Doing research on almost a daily basis the past decade, I have found and I have been found by second cousins, long lost and broken branches and the most peculiar kinship.

One of them who found me is a granddaughter to my paternal grandfathers sister. Her name is Monica. Since I never knew my paternal grandfather it means a lot to me to get 'access' to his past as well as living relatives on his side of the family. That broken branch is still alive. Monica didn't know about me either and absolutely nothing about my grandfather and his life in Skåne. We now exchange greetings & thoughts as well as old photos, scrap book articles and of course research results. It is great to be found and on top of that, to get a friend and a new family member!

As an extra bonus in my life, I act as the contact person for a Swedish family association and their families here in the US. We found each other on a query list and since then I've helped finding the last missing pieces in the family puzzle of the family's first immigrants. It was an honor to get to know them and I have more or less a daily contact with the association's board members in Sweden.

Having 'pen pals' and friends all over the US and in Sweden surely is an asset in life. One of them, Mats, to whom I am rel-ated to some time deep down in the 1770's, is an author, a co-author of a book about Verum. 

It is a most comprehensive book about life and living in Verum parish (in Skåne), covering many centuries. By now I must have read it about a hundred times, so you're really lucky if you have relatives in that particular parish!

Mats and I are now collecting material for a book that hopefully will be published some time in 2010, and it is a book describing  what happened to the early emigrants (leaving between 1850-1880) from Farstorp and Verum parishes. So if you have your roots in Farstorp, Verum or Norra Åkarp in Skåne, Sweden, there is not much we don't know about them or their emigrating relatives. Interesting 'clusters' of immigrants were formed from these parishes and the population have pretty much gathered and populated areas like Ortonville, Big Stone, MN, St James, MN,  Galesburg, Knox, IL and many many more places. 

If you have relatives that emigrated from any of these parishes I would love to get in contact with you. Read more about the book me on the page "Early Settlers".