maja lena pettersdotter (part 3 of 3)

death

In 1890, Maja and Anders return to Humla; where they remain for the rest of their lives (at this time their son Frans actually moves back to Blidsberg with his new wife; although the rest of Maja and Anders' children are all living in Humla). Maja dies at the age of 72, in Humla, on November 8, 1898.  I am not practiced in reading Swedish handwritting, so I am not sure of her cause of death.  It may be in the column 4th to the end.  Maja's husband, Anders, lives only a year and a half longer; his date of death is May 18, 1900.

Death record of Maja Lena Pettersdotter, Humla, Sweden (gid 1908.11.100)

From maja lena feb 2013

I believe Maja survived all of her siblings. (note 1)  Her youngest sister died the same year as Maja, but in February. 

All of Maja and Anders' children survive them. One child, Emma Sofia, moves to the United States, to Warwick, RI in 1892, with 5 of Maja and Ander's grandchildren (Emma continues to have a total of 9 children). I am not sure how much contact the family had with each other while living in Sweden, but I would guess they would have seen Emma and the grandchildren off to America. Emma was the only child of Maja and Anders who left Sweden; although, some of Maja's other grandchildren emigrated to America also.  An ancestry.com tree has some of their son Alfrid's children emigrating to Colorado in the US. 

Maja and Anders had a total of 26 grandchildren.  As I mentioned above, 5 leave for America as children (Emma's children) and 4 more are born in America.  One of Gustafa's children was not born before Maja died; so that leaves Maja as knowing 19 of her grandchildren while she was alive.  Not all of her grandchildren survived her; however.  I found at least 2 that died as children; both children of their youngest  son Frans.

Humla churchyard, picture by Ake Fagerlund on kyrkokartan.se website

I would love to have a picture of Maja and Ander's headstone, but I am not sure where they are buried.  I think that if they are listed in the church books for Humla, that would mean they are buried at the Humla churchyard, hopefully with a headstone.  I did come across one website that has photos of headstones of Swedish churchyards, but they only have three for Humla.  The website is Gravstensinventeringen. I did check findagrave.com also, but they do not have any listings for Humla.  

notes
1. I have not found a death record yet for her brother Johan who emigrates to America.

to do
1. look for death records in Swedish Death Index to see if all grandchildren stayed in Sweden - how many went to America.
2. search for pictures of gravestones for Humla cemetery - maybe Maja and Anders are buried there.

maja lena pettersdotter (part 2 of 3)

family life

Maja was 26 years old when she married.  Her husband, Anders Andersson, was 27 years old and also living in Blidsberg, Sweden at the time.  I am not sure if Anders was the father of her illegitimate child, Johan; as there is no father listed on Johan's birth record.  Sometimes the church records have a book of church accountings which may discuss these matters, but Blidsberg does not have this for 1850.  Anders was living on a farm less than a mile away from the farm Maja was living on at the time of Johan's birth in 1850.  Anders was on the farm Åslyckan, while Maja was living at Alarp Odegarden.  It seems likely that they knew each other before the birth of Johan.

residence of Anders Andersson 1825-1852 on farm Åslyckan (A)

 and Maja Lena Petersdotter 1842-1851 on farm Alarp Odegarden (B)

View Larger Map

After Maja and Anders married, they moved out of Blidsberg to a neighboring parish of Humla.  In their Household Examination, Anders' name has the notation "torp." before it.  According to the book, "Your Swedish Roots", this is a "crofter, cottager or peasant". Maja and Anders stayed on the same farm of Mellomskogen, in Humla, until 1872 - for 20 years.  They had four more children after Johan, all born while living at this farm.

   

Mellomskogen, Humla, Sweden : Residence of Maja, Anders, and children 1852-1872

(Maja's age 26-46)

View Maja Lena Petersdotter timeline in a larger map

During this period, while Maja and Anders were living in Humla; Maja's parents, her brother Johan, and her sister Johannes were all living on separate farms in the parish of Böne.  Böne and Humla parishes are a bit over 6 miles apart; therefore, I am not sure Maja would have seen her parents and siblings very often.  Her mother, Lena, died in Böne in 1870, her father in 1882.  Her brother Johan only stayed in Böne until 1854, when the moving out records show him moving to North America.  I believe he was the first in her family to emigrate (note 1).  Her sister Johannes stayed in Böne until she died in 1898.  Maja's oldest sister, Anna Cassa, was still living in Brismene; which was even further from Humla.  Anna stayed in Brismene until her death in 1890.

In 1872, Maja and her husband and all five of their children, moved to the farm of Gunnarp, still within Humla.  They only stayed at this farm for 3 years.   In 1875 they moved within Humla again.  They are listed below their second oldest son Alfrid Sand, who is now a soldier in the Elfsborg (Alvsborg) Regiment and resides in a soldatorp (soldier residence) on the farm of Nickabo.  It is not clear to me on the Household Examination if Maja and Anders are also living in Nickabo with their son, but I do not see another farm name listed. Soldiers in Sweden lived in certain houses in the parish, so Maja and family may have moved here when Alfrid became a soldier. (note 2)

Household Examination Humla gid 1908.8.3300 Maja Lena Petersdotter 1875-1879

This farm of Nickabo would be the last place Maja and her family were all together in the same house.  The dates in the last column of the Household Examination above, show all their children moving out of the household.  Their oldest son, Johan, moves that same year to another farm in Humla.  Their daughter, Gustafa Charlotta, moves to another farm in 1878.  Another daughter, Jeff's great, great grandmother Emma Sofia, moves to another farm in 1879.  The only child that remains with Maja and Anders is Frans Wilhelm.  The three of them move in 1879 also, but they leave Humla for the parish of Brunns, to a farm called Björkelund.  This was the furthest move Maja and Anders have made.  The other moves were all into surrounding parishes; but this move was about 15 miles south (using current roads), close to the city of Ulricehamn (noted in map below).  They only stay at this farm for three years, returning to the parish of Blidsberg in 1883.  Anders is noted as an arrendator, which is tenant farmer.  

current locations of Maja Lena's residences throughout her life in Sweden

(the yellow pin is where her husband Anders lived as a child)

View Maja Lena Petersdotter timeline in a larger map

After Maja and Anders returned to Blidsberg, their son Frans lives with them for one more year.  In 1884, Frans is listed as a soldier in Humla, while Maja and Anders remain in Blidsberg until 1890.    This would make two of Maja and Ander's sons soldiers and one daughter, Gustapha Charlotta, marrying a soldier. While Maja and Anders are living in Blidsberg, all of their children are in the neighboring parish of Humla.



notes:
1. The Moving Out records for Böne in 1854 show Johannes and his wife and son moving to North America.  I was unable to locate any passenger records for this family.  I was also unable to locate them in any censuses in the US for dates beginning in 1860.  Johannes seems to be the first to emigrate, but at least two of Maja's neices/nephews- Johanna's children - also emigrate to America - Thur in 1893 - and Selma in 1888 (some ancestry.com hints imply more of Johanna's children emigrate).  Also to be mentioned in the next post, their daughter, Emma Sofia emigrates in 1892.

2.  There is a picture of Alfrid playing a fiddle and a picture with his wife on someone's tree on ancestry.com. I love finding pictures of ancestors that people have generously posted. 

     
to do:
1. keep searching for passenger records for Johannes to see where in US he settled.  Information in book - tracing your swedish ancestors - about finding passenger records for the early years of emigration - such as 1854.

2. search swedish death index to see how many of Maja's sisters' children emigrate to US - do they haev death records in the Swedish Death Index.  Search other neices and nephews also.

maja lena pettersdotter (part 1 of 3)

childhood

Maria Helena Pettersdotter, Jeff's 3rd great grandmother, was born May 13, 1826 in Blidsberg, Sweden, at Danstorp.  I first came across Maria's name written as Maja Lena in a Household Examination record, so I had been documenting her as Maja Lena rather than Maria Helena.  Most of my writing will therefore call her Maja Lena, as that is how I think of her.  I have since found her name written either way in the many different documents.  Maja was the third child out of five born to Peter Andersson and Lena Michaelsdotter; although one older sister had died at the age of 1, before Maja was born.

birth record of Maria Helena Pettersdotter (Maja Lena) 1826 Blidsberg

According to the Household Examinations, the family moved soon after Maja's birth from Blidsberg to the parish of Börstig, Sweden in 1826.  They stayed in Börstig for about 11 years, living at Hedenstorp; which most likey was a farm name.  I was able to locate Hedenstorp in Börstig on an historical map and have marked it on the current map below.   

current map of Maja Lena's residence from 1826-1837 Hedenstorp, Börstig, Sweden until she was 11 years old

View Maja Lena Petersdotter timeline in a larger map

In 1837, Maja and her family of 6 moved to a neighboring parish of Brismene. They stayed in Brismene for about 5 years, when Maja was between the ages of 11-16.  I was not able to locate on the historical maps either farm of Dalbogården or Storegården in Brismene that are listed in the Household Examinations for this family.  I will have to look into this area a little bit more.  Most of the parishes Maja has lived in seem to be very small parishes, with currently about 500 residents.  Her father, Petter Andersson, is noted as hälftenbrukare in the Brismene Household Examinations.  According to the book "Your Swedish Roots", a  hälftenbrukare, is a farmer who pays half the profit of the land let to him. (note 1)

household examination Brismene, Sweden (farm Dalbogården) gid  661.5.75500 maja lena petersdotter 1837-1840

household examination Brismene, Sweden (farm Storegården) gid  661.5.79300 maja lena petersdotter 1840-1843

When Maja was about 16 years old, around 1842, the family moved back to Blidsberg, the parish where she was born.  The Household Examination record above shows that Maja's older sister, Anna Cassa, is no  longer living with them.  She had married a year earlier in 1841, and stayed in Brismene for the rest of her life.  Maja lived with her parents for another 10 years in Blidsberg.  Nine of those years they lived on the farm Alarp Ödegård.  While living on this farm with her family, Maja's first child was born out of wedlock when she was 23 years old.  The Household Examination record has a notation of oäkta, for illegitimate child, next to Johan August, born in 1850 (the last entry for the household on the examination below).  His birth record confirms he was Maja's child.

    

household examination Blidsberg, Sweden (farm Alarp Ödegårdarden) gid 578.8.90200 maja lena petersdotter 1842-1851

This Household Examination record also shows one of Maja's brothers, Johannes, moves back to Brismene in 1851.  The family household now includes Maja, her father Peter, her mother Sara, her youngest sister, Johanna, and Maja's illegitimate child, Johan August.  This family of five moves in 1851 to another farm in Blidsberg, Västra Alarp.  Maja only stays here for one year, moving out with her son, after she marries in 1852.

current map of Maja Lena's residence from 1842-1852, age 16-26

(blue is Alarp Ödegård farm, yellow is Västra Alarp farm, Blidsberg, Sweden)

View Maja Lena Petersdotter timeline in a larger map
(to be continued...)

notes :
1. This notation of hälftenbrukare is also in the Danstorp farm for the Blidsberg Household Examination for 1826, the farm where Maja was born before they moved to Börstig.

rhode island families

I have been trying to write a post about my great grandparents that lived in MA, but it is taking me longer than expected. In the meantime, while data gathering, I found a great grand uncle that moved to Rhode Island. I have not done much research yet in Rhode Island, even though my husband's family is from that state, so I searched to see what kind of online databases were out there. I found a very useful one on familysearch.org, Rhode Island Deaths and Burials, 1802-1950.

I was able to find the death of my great grand uncle mentioned above. I will write about that in another post; but since I was in this database I could not stop myself from plugging in some names on my husband's side of the family. I was so excited to find some new information. I wanted to note it all down here, even though I did also enter it into my family tree. I like to have a record of what I have searched and what new information I found; sometimes that can get lost in all the names in my family tree. 

I started with my husband's maternal line. I already knew his great great grandmother, Hilma Sofia Myrhman, had died in Rhode Island sometime after 1920, as that is the last census I found her in. I found her very quickly in the above mentioned Rhode Island database under the name Hilma Sofia Anderson, with a death date of July 23, 1947 in Coventry, RI. Now I can search for her in the 1930 census, and look for her obituary. The death record also listed her father's name, which I did not have, as Per Mirhman (a little different spelling). I will also look for any other of her children which could be listed in this database, although their deaths may have occurred after 1950. Perhaps she had siblings that came to the US though?

I also new my husband's other great great grandparents probably died in Rhode Island in the early 1900s, so I searched for their names. I found Alfrid Carlson's death on March 25, 1914 in West Warwick, RI. This date is a year off from the transcrition of his stone I found online from The Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Transcription Project. I also found his wife in the database with a death date of July 25, 1935 in West Warwick, RI. I already had the names of both sets of parents, which was the same as I found in the database. I will next have to search for their nine children in this database.

My husband's paternal side of his family also has people I was interested in finding in this Rhode Island Death database. This side of his family is Portuguese, and I have had trouble in the past searching in online databases because I find the names unfamiliar and a little confusing. They seem to switch between two surnames in the census, and sometimes use a name as a middle name. I was a bit hesitant to search, but I think I did find some new information that seems to fit in with this family. 
Here is the family chart to refer back to if need be :



My first search on this side of the family was for my husband's great grandfather Ernesto Francisco, (he has the easiest name). I have only seen his name written a couple of different ways, Ernesto Francisco and Ernest/o Francis. In this database, he is listed as Ernest E Francis. I believe his middle name is Gilbert, the E may be a transcription error. According to this database, Ernest died on October 28, 1941 in East Providence, RI. I did not have Ernest's parents' names before I searched this database, so that was another great find. They are listed as Joseph Francis and Frances Mattos. I had some indication that his father's name was Joseph, when I found what I think are Ernest's sisters on a ship passenger list; naming Joseph as their father and Ernest as their brother. It does seem likely that these are his sisters that came to Rhode Island from Sao Miguel, Azores. I did a quick search for these sisters in the Rhode Island database, but was unable to locate them. Their names on the passenger list are Maria Conceicao Tereira and Maria Ernestina, arriving in Boston, MA in 1914. Strange that their father's surname of Francisco is not listed. They travelled with an older woman, but I am not sure of her relationship to them.

Ernesto's wife, Aldina Pereira, died in 1971, so she would not be listed in this database. I do already have her parent's names from Aldina's social security application. According to Aldina's passenger record, she traveled to Boston with her brother, Annibal, whose death date I do not have. I am not sure where he was living or if he died after 1950, but he is not listed in the Rhode Island Death database either.

The more confusing side of my husband's portuguese family is another set of great great grandparents, the Gouveia/Martin's. I have found this family listed as Joseph Gouveia, Joseph Govey, Joseph Martin, Joseph Martin Govey; the last entry is how he is listed in the Rhode Island Death database. I previously had not had a death date for Joseph or his wife Theresa. Joseph died February 1, 1901 in Cranston, RI. The birth date for Joseph does seem to be a bit off from what I have in my family tree, I am not sure why the discrepancy, but perhaps this is not the correct death information after all. My original source for Joseph's birth was the 1900 census, which gave his birth about 1854. His death record shows his birth as 1865. If the Rhode Island Death database is correct, then Joseph's parents are Manuel Gouveia and Theresa. In this database, there is also a Frank Martin Govey born in 1879 with the same parents, perhaps Joseph's brother.

Joseph's wife Theresa has been a little more difficult to find. I have Theresa's maiden name as Andrade, from her daughter Mary's social security application. The death database does list a Theresa Martin Amorel Govey with a death date of 24 Feb 1912 in Warwick, RI. The parents listed though do not match her maiden name of Andrade - but are Antonio and Clara Amorel. The birthdate of 1868 is also different than the Theresa from the 1900 census of around 1856. I am not sure I am finding the correct couple with these different birth dates, but I am now beginning to think that the census was incorrect. I checked to see if I had Theresa in the 1910 census, and I did. This census does list her birth date of 1870, much closer to the death record I found. She is also living in Warwick, RI, the place the "other" Theresa died only 2 years later. I am inclined to believe this is the correct death record of Theresa. Perhaps the social security application noted her maiden name incorrectly, or some Azorean naming custom which I do not understand has come into play. Once again, the Gouveia's/Martins are giving me some difficulty.

Overall, I was happy with the information I found in this database. I am not done searching through it yet, but I do want to move on to my other task of writing about one set of my great grandparents.

anders andersson (update)

I have been meaning to look at the household examination records on SVAR, the databases of the Swedish National Archives, to see if they made available online later years for Blidsberg. As I noted in my last blog post on Anders Andersson, Jeff's 3rd great grandfather, I was only able to find him in these records up to 1883 in Brunn, as Ancestry and Genline only had up to that year in their household examination records. I finally checked SVAR (you need to activate at least a 3 hour subscription on SVAR, so I was waiting until I knew I had at least a couple of hours in a row free). I was in luck, their household examination records for Blidsberg and Humla went up to 1900. Maybe now I would be able to find Anders' death date, as this would be listed in the household record if he died during his residence in one of the parishes.

I was not sure where to start to find Anders, as I did not know which village or farm within Blidsberg he had moved to. Sometimes you can find the village name if you find them in the "moving out" or "moving in" records, but these were not available online for the year 1883 for these parishes. My only choice was to start browsing through the pages of the household examination records for Blidsberg 1880-1900. Luckily I found them very quickly, on page 5, living in the location of "Sluntom" in Blidsberg. Their son, Frans Wilhem, soldier, and his wife are living in the same village or farm of Sluntom, listed right below Anders on the record. The record shows that Frans was living in Blidsberg with his parents until 1890, then they all moved to Humla for a short time, and Frans alone moved back to Sluntom, Blidsberg with his wife. Anders and Maja stayed in Humla after they moved there from Blidsberg in 1890.

When Anders moves to Humla in 1890, he is 65 years old. Anders and Maja were easy to find in the Humla household record as the page number was noted on the Blidsberg record when they left. They are found on page 96, living in the village of Storemberg? (difficult to read) A death date is given for Maja of November in 1898. Soon after, in 1899 at the age of 74, Anders leaves this village for another one in Humla, Odegard. Anders only lives without his wife for another year and a half, as I found his death record in Humla on May 18, 1900. He was 75 years old.

I wrote a little bit about the churches in Humla and Blidsberg in my last post. The church in Blidsberg was built in 1868. Since Anders moved back to Blidsberg in 1883, living there for 7 years, he and his wife would have attended the church that was built and is still standing today.

picture by Daniel E on kyrkokartan.se website

Since Anders also lived in Humla for the last 10 years of his life, he would have attended the new church there as well, built in the 1880s. I am guessing he also would have been buried here with his wife who also died in Humla. I do not know much about the burial customs in Sweden, but I think everyone was buried in the Church graveyard. I would assume this would get pretty crowded quickly, so I wonder if everyone gets a stone, or how they manage the amount of burials. Humla is not a very populated parish though, with only about 2-4 burials a year at that time; so perhaps this was not much of a problem.

picture by Ake Fagerlund on kyrkokartan.se website

Since I now know that Anders is living during the 1890 census, I checked it again to see if I could find him. This time I just did a search for Anders with a birth date of 1825, leaving out the parish of birth. I am actually not sure why I did not do this before, I guess I did not have as much confidence that he was living at this time and gave up too quickly. Anyway, he was listed in Humla with his wife Maja, with a birth place of Humla (which is incorrect). He was not listed in the 1900 census though; he must have died before it was taken. He was alive however to see his daughter Emma off to America in 1892. For some reason it makes me happy to think he knew about this big change in one of his children's lives. I have not found any other evidence that any of his other children moved to America. Two of his sons became soldiers and his other daughter married a soldier. Perhaps they felt an attachment to Sweden being in the military. The oldest son Johan was not a soldier, but was at least living in Blidsberg by 1891 according to the household examination records. (I did not find Anders' son Johan in the 1900 census).

anders anderson

Anders is my husband's, Jeff, 3rd great grandfather. The Swedish naming tradition was to add "son" or "dotter" to their father's first name to create their last name, so Anders' father was Anders Pettersson, and Anders full name is Anders Andersson. Anders' mother's name was Lisa Svensdotter (daughter of Sven). Married women kept their family names throughout their lives. Since Anders has such a common name, I have to make sure I have the right Anders Andersson in the records I find. Fortunately, the Swedish records provide birth dates in most of their records, which makes it much easier to distinguish between two people with the same name, even in the same area.

Anders was born April 26, 1825 in Blidsberg, Sweden, where he spent his childhood with his family until he was 27 years old. He was the second to youngest (youngest boy) of five, with only one sister who was 10 years younger than he. He never knew his oldest brother Johannes, as he died when he almost one year old. On the Household Examination records, Anders is found living with his family at Åslyckan, Blidsberg, Sweden. (During the period of 1827-1828, his family is listed at Västra Alarp in Blidsberg.) These two locations within Blidsberg are most likely farm names, where families lived and worked. The Household Examination records are great records to find your families in Sweden, as you can really pinpoint the location of your ancestor on old and current maps of Sweden (note 1).  The archives of the National Surveying Office's website lantmateriet, has historical maps of Sweden with farm and village names within the parishes.  I wrote about this website in another post.  After looking at the historical Blidsberg map, I was able to locate the current location of the two farms Anders grew up on using Google maps, as shown below.


Map of Blidsberg, Sweden
Anders childhood homeland (1825-1852)
left arrow is Åslyckan, right arrow Västra Alarp
View Blidsberg, Sweden in a larger map

One thing that sticks out for me after looking at the current satellite maps from Google is the lack of houses on the farms, usually only having one house on a large area of farm land. Sometimes there are more than one family listed on the farms in the household examination records, which probably meant more than one family was living together in the same houses. I wonder what the houses were like. I believe that many of the farmers were tenant farmers, leasing land and house from the owner of the farm land. There is a great article on the Federation of Swedish Genealogical Societies' websiteTraceing Your Swedish Roots, under the "Life in Old Sweden" section. The article is titled Torp and Torpare - An Analysis by Nils William Olsson, which discusses the evolution of the "topare" in Sweden; giving insight into what life may have been like for Anders. I am not sure if records exist for who owned the farm land that Jeff's ancestors lived and worked on. Maybe this information can be found on tax lists, as explained on Tracing Your Swedish Roots website, under the tax records section.

Blidsberg seems to be a fairly small rural area in Southern Sweden. At the time Anders lived here, Blidsberg was part of Alvsborg County. I could not find any books on google or worldcat.org on the history of Blidsberg, Sweden, so I did not find much information on the parish. There is a book at the Family Search Centers, Min barndoms Blidsberg på 1880-talet, about the history of Blidsberg parish in the 1880s, but it is written in Swedish, so probably would not be that useful to me, but maybe it contains some pictures.

I am always interested in the churches that our ancestors attended, as sometimes the church is still standing and it is great to get a glimpse of any part of our ancestor’s lives. Anders lived only about 1 mile from his Lutheran church in Blidsberg. There is a beautiful picture of the Blidsberg Kyrka (church) on the photo website Panoramio taken by Sture Björnson, here. I was not sure this church was the same church that was standing when Anders was alive, so I searched a bit more to see when it was built. I looked for Blidsberg in the LIBRIS catalog of the National Archives of Sweden and found the following book, translated title, Blidberg old and new church: a short history: [100 anniversary 1870-1970, which of course is written in Swedish, not much help to me. I love that the LIBRIS catalog has a link to search Google and Google Books using relavent search terms. (I did not have much success finding links by searching Google independently – perhaps because of the different language). After clicking on these links, I came across an informative website and more pictures of the church at Blidsberg, on kyrkokartan.se. According to this website, the church currently standing in Blidsberg is not the church that Anders grew up attending, as it seems to have been built in 1868, by which time he was living in the parish of Humla.

Anders was 27 in 1852, when he left Blidsberg for Humla, with his new wife, Maja Lena Petersdotter. They did not travel far, as Humla is only one parish North of Blidsberg. Anders and his family lived for about 15 years at Sodra Torpet in Humla, having five children there. They moved within the parish of Humla after 1867, first to the farm Mellomakoyen until 1872, then to the farm Gunnarp until 1875, then to Nickabo until 1879. The farm of Nickabo also has his son, Alfrid, listed above him as a "soldat", or soldier. Soldiers lived in certain areas of the town, and were supported by the town (note 2). Perhaps when Anders son Alfrid became a soldier, they moved to this area with him.


Map of Humla, Sweden
farm locations for Anders Andersson and family 1852-1879

View Humla kyrka in a larger map

Much of Anders adult life was spent in Humla, so I decided to do the same search in LIBRIS for the church in Humla, and found the following book in their catalog, Humla Church, written in 1984. I again clicked on the Google link to search for webpages about the church and found the following, also on kyrkokartan.se. Another good website on the history of the church at Humla is here. This website states that the church standing now at Humla was built in the 1880s. Since Anders left Humla in 1880, it was not the church that Anders would have attended. Anders probably would have seen the new church though, as his children were still living in this area at that time. The website also states that the church that was previously at Humla, the one Anders would have attended, was actually from the 1100s. I would have loved to have seen what that church was like. I did also find a little bit of general history on the village of Humla on the website of Farfars Handelsbod (Grandpa Handelsbod).

In 1880, at the age of 55, Anders and his wife left Humla, where they are found in the 1880 Census in Brunn, with their youngest son, Frans Wilhelm. In the census, Anders' occupation is "arrendator", a tenant farmer or leaseholder. This is most likely Anders occupation through out his life. Brunn is about 14 miles south of Humla, closer to the city of Ulriceham. I am not sure why they would move to this area after being in Humla for 27 years, especially since most of their children were still living in Humla and Blidsberg with their families. The only connection I have found is that his younger sister, Helena Kristina Andersdotter, is living in Brunn with her husband and children during the 1880 census. The houshold examination for Brunn has Anders on the farm of Bjorkelund until 1883. While searching on the internet for information about this area, I came across Ulricehamns Kommun's website with an interesting page on the natural history of the Ulriceham area, which gives much history of the land.

The Brunn household examination shows that Anders and Maja left Brunn in 1883 to Blidsberg, the parish he grew up in. I have lost track of them after this move. The household examination records and "moving out" records on ancestry.com and Swedish Genline end here for all the towns I have mentioned, so I was not able to find where in Blidsberg Anders and Maja were living. (note 3)

The 1890 census on SVAR only lists one Anders Andersson (Anders Petter Andersson) born in 1825 in Blidsberg, living in Orebro parish of the county Orebro, as a widow. I did not find a Maja Petersson in the 1890 census. I am not sure if this Anders is the correct one, but Orebro is 129 miles north of Blidsberg. This seems like a long distance to travel to find work. To narrow down who this Anders Petter Andersson is, I checked the birth records in Blidsberg 1825 to see if there was another Anders Andersson born in Blidsberg that year. There actually was another Anders born that year in Blidsberg, with a middle name of Petter. This most likely is the Anders living in Orebro in 1890, not my husband's ancestor.

Since I did not find Anders in the 1890 or 1900 Swedish Censuses, I think he probably died between 1883 and 1890. I searched through the Brunn, Blidsberg and Humla death records up to 1897 but was unable to find a record of either Anders or Maja's death. I know that his daughter, Emma, moved to America in 1892, I wonder if he knew this before he passed and what he thought of one of his children leaving Sweden. (UPDATE : see next post about death of Anders)

notes :
1. Household examination records for Sweden can be found online with a subscription on Genline and Ancestry.  You need to know the parish your ancestor was from in order to use these records.  These records were kept for each family in a parish for the purpose recording their knowledge of catechism each year. The records allow you to follow your ancestors through moving within farms and in and out of parishes.
2. Information on soldiers in Sweden from the book: Clemensson, Per, and Kjell Andersson. Your Swedish Roots: A Step by Step Handbook. Provo, UT: Ancestry, 2004.
3. I believe later household examination records for these areas are available at the provincial Archives of Landsarkivet i Göteborg under the National Archives of Sweden, Riksarkivet, in Sweden; as long as the records are 70 years or older.(UPDATE : see next post)

to do :
1. Look at the legal records of the time kept at the judicial district level. The judicial district for Brunn, Blidsberg and Humla is Redväg. The Family Search centers do have microfilm available for this distrcit, but do not seem to go past the year 1860. Some of these records available at the Family Search Center for this district also include land divisions, mortgages, and criminal records, so it would be worth looking through in case Anders or his family is mentioned.
2. Find tax records for the land and farms Anders lived and worked on.
3.   Find Swedish records after 1883 to locate where Anders Andersson and his wife Maja were living in Blidsberg (Household Examinations at archives, provincial Archives of Landsarkivet i Göteborg, or National Archives of Sweden, Riksarkivet). (UPDATE : found 1880-1900 household examination records for Humla and Blidsberg on SVAR - see next post)
4. Find where and when Anders Andersson died. The National Swedsh Archives, Riksarkivet, has the following (as noted on the Archives Section of the Swedish Roots Website):
"Copies of all birth, death and marriage records from 1860, copies of the clerical surveys for every 10 years from 1860, and also copies of church records from all Sweden are kept in the microfiche reading room, which moved in 1998 to the new facilities at Arninge, just north of Stockholm (see info below). The microfiche are available up to 1930, due to the 70 year secrecy law." (UPDATE : found death dates for Anders and Maja - see next post)
5.  See if any other of Anders' children, or Anders himself, went to America as their daughter Emma did in 1892 with her husband (Jeff's great great grandparents). (UPDATE : found some more information on children - see next post)


books on topic:
1. translated title: Ulricehamns municipality. D. 2, Blidberg, Dalum, Humla, Kölaby and Timmele parishes and Ulricehmans city of Brunn and Vist former parishes

Sweden

I received the book, Your Swedish Roots, for Christmas, and have been reading through it pretty quickly. In the past, I have spent some time on Genline and looking through many Swedish Parish records for Jeff's family history, so I already knew the basics of Swedish genealogy. I was hoping this book would help me find other information, such as location of specific farms listed in the household examination records. Also, since the Swedish records in Genline and SVAR are obviously in Swedish, I was hoping to gain some insight to information other than dates and names that are in these records that I was not able to read.

I have already learned quite a bit from this book, including finding location of farms from maps on The archives of the National Surveying Office's website, lantmateriet. I looked at the historical maps on the website, where you can search and purchase maps for parishes in Sweden. I was able to locate the boundaries of the farm of Haggard in Humla where Carl (Charles) Carlson, Jeff's great grandfather, was raised. It would be great to buy this map; however, my computer seems to crash every time I try to get to the purchase page. The digital version online allowed me to locate on google maps the location and the more current satelite view of this area. My next step is to see if there are other families living on this farm and to see if the household examination record in the parish book lists the occupation of Carl's father, Alfrid Carlson, on this farm. Now that I have some key Swedish terms from the book, I will be able to get more information out of the parish records.

Google map of the farm location Haggarden, Humla, Sweden
(green arrow is location of Haggarden farm)

View Blidsberg in a larger map

the other side

Most of my posts have been on relatives from my side of the family; however, today we can finally celebrate one of Jeff's (and the kids') ancestors. Jeff's 4th great grandmother, Mary Smith, married her second husband, William Cottrell, March 4, 1845 in St. Martin, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, 165 years ago.

Mary married her first husband, Jeff's 4th great grandfather, James Scattergood, probably in the mid 1830s, as their first daughter, Ann, was born around 1836. I was not able to locate Mary and James' marriage record in the BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death Index) on Ancestry.com, probably because these records began in 1837. I would have to look at the parish registers for Birmingham, although I am not sure where they were married. Birmingham parishes would be a good guess as this is where Mary was from. James is not listed as deceased on his son Samuel's marriage record in 1869; but Mary Smith's 2nd Marriage record states Mary is a widow when she remarries in 1845 to William Cottrell. I did find a possible death record for James Scattergood. The dates match up, as this record of James states he was 32 years old when he dies, which means he was born around 1811, the same year our James was born according to his 1841 census record.

[possible death : Name: James Scattergood Year of Registration: 1842 Quarter of Registration: Apr-May-Jun District: Birmingham (1837-1924) County: Warwickshire Volume: 16 Page: 175 - obtained record 3-1-07]

When Mary married her second husband, William, the marriage record states she was living on Lancaster Street, Birmingham, England. She was also living on Lancaster Street with her first husband, James, in the 1841 census, so she was probably still living in the same place after his death. I will have to take a look again at the James' death certificate to see if it lists the street this James lived on before he died. If it does list Lancaster Street, it probably is the correct James. I have not located Mary and William in the 1861 or 1871 censuses, so I am not sure when they made the move to another house.

Mary is found living at 9 Court 9 in Birmingham, England, in the 1881 census without her second husband, William. Mary is listed as widowed. I am not sure about the street address as I am not familiar with British addresses. It looks like the street listed for the family above Mary's entry live on Newhall Street. Mary's entry states 9 Court 9 - with a space in front of the first 9. Familysearch has transcribed her address as 9 Court 9 Newhall Street. The 1881 census lists street addresses and names of houses, so perhaps they lived on Newhall Street and Court is the name of the house. The entries after Mary's family also list Court - so perhaps it was a complex of some nature. It also could be that Court is the name of the street, but I am not sure why there would be two nines listed - one before and one after. Looking at Maps on Google - there is both a Newhall Street and a Court Street in Birmingham. They are about 1 mile apart from each other, so it would seem strange that a Census enumerator would go from Newhall Street then to Court Street immediately after, missing all the other streets in between. I guess the best way to figure this out would be to look at previous census pages to see if other house names are listed on Newhall Street and to look at pages after Mary's entry to see if Newhall Street is listed again at the top of the page, as it is on Mary's page. This will give me a better sense of the area that was enumerated.

Further evidence that they probably lived on Newhall Street and the name of the house was Court is explained on Wikipedia's entry on Birmingham Back to Backs. It is an article about a set of Back to Backs in Birmingham that were restored, and gives an address of 50 Inge Street/ 1 Court 15, which is very similar to the entry above for Mary and her family of Newhall Street, 9 Court 9. Another article on Wikipedia is useful in it's description of what a Back to Back is :

"Back-to-back houses are a form of terraced house in which two houses share a rear wall (or in which the rear wall of a house directly abuts a factory or other building)..Usually of low quality (sometimes with only two rooms, one on each floor) and high density, they were built for working class people and because three of the four walls of the house were shared with other buildings and therefore contained no doors or windows, back-to-back houses were notoriously ill-lit and poorly ventilated and sanitation was of a poor standard."

If this is the type of house that Mary and her family lived in, it must have been very crowded. Mary is the head of household in the above mentioned 1881 census, which includes Mary's daughter Sarah and her two children (Sarah and William) and Mary's widowed son Samuel and his three children (Agnes, Luisa, and Arthur). Mary's daughter Sarah is listed as married, but no spouse is listed. Mary's son, Samuel Oakley Scattergood, is Jeff's 3rd great grandfather. Mary also had two other children, Ann and Mary, that are probably living with their spouses at this time. According to approximate birth dates gathered from census data, all of Mary's children were from her first husband, James Scattergood.

It seems Mary Smith Scattergood Cottrell lived in Birmingham, England thoughout her life, from about 1816 until her death after 1881 when she was probably living on Newhall Street. Google books has The Encyclopedia Americana... online, with an excerpt on Birmingham here. Also on Google books is A Concise History of Birmingham, published in 1808, a little before Mary was born there. Of course, Wikipedia also has an entry here with some Birmingham history, sharing with us the following passage, "author J. R. R. Tolkien was brought up in Birmingham with many locations in the city such as Moseley bog, Sarehole Mill and Perrott's Folly supposedly being the inspiration for various scenes in The Lord of the Rings." Some interesting things occurred in Mary's homeplace of Birmingham, including the composer Mendelssohn's "Elijah" being preformed for the first time at the Birmingham Festival in 1846 (a year after she married William). Another part of history occurred in Birmingham about 15 years before Mary was born, the Birmingham Riots of 1791, perhaps Mary's parents witnessed this historic event.

To Do List:
1. look at the pages before and after Mary's entry on the 1881 Census to see if other house names are listed (before) and Newhall Street is listed (after)
2. find James Scattergood death certificate that I ordered to see if Lancaster street is listed as his address - which would make this death certificate a more probable match - also see if his parents are listed on this death certificate.
3. find where Mary's daughter Sarah's husband may have been in the 1881 census - why he is not listed with them as Sarah is listed as married, not widowed.
4. find mary's first marriage record to james scattergood perhaps in birmingham parish registers