Family Tree

Spectacular weather this week and so many happenings that I couldn’t keep up!

Lisa, head of Lund’s Family History Center reached out (months after my initial query), offering to show me how to use the digital Arkiv of Swedish records, even though the center is not yet reopened yet post covid. She explained a lot about the Husförhörslängder books. The pastor of each local parish would keep a detailed record of each household, including births, deaths, occupations, address, dates of anyone moving to or from the house, etc. The primary purpose being to assess each church member’s biblical knowledge, each confirmed member was given a letter grade! (My 5th great-grandmother, Kerstin Pehrsdotter, had all A’s) As the printer was broken and I did not bring a memory stick, I was not able to get a copy of the records. I took a few photos and will go back later to get the files we downloaded.

I think it will be very difficult for me to access these records on my own since Lisa’s knowledge of Swedish, the abbreviations used, the meaning of lots of shorthand/ numbers and such was essential. The books are not searchable except by Parish and range of years, so she only found my family by knowing approximately where to look in each book. Since I knew my great- grandfather’s birthday and the Parish his father was from, we were able to find them and go back 3 more generations!

My 2nd great grandfather had two sisters, Hanna and Ingar, who both died from measles in January of 1856. Lisa said that was very common and often children who shared a bed would be infected around the same time. Many families went on to have more children with the same names, which was the case in my family, too. It’s one reason that matching up records on Ancestry can be very challenging. One needs to see the whole family listed together for context. My great-grandfather, Sigfred, had an older brother, also named Sigfred, who died in his first year. Seeing how many people died from diseases that have been eradicated through vaccination drives home the following message.

Those who refuse to be vaccinated in the name of personal freedom are selfish assholes, oblivious to history and undeserving of the privileges they receive from living in a society that protects them in ways they won’t reciprocate or even acknowledge. They ought to be shunned by society. They should feel FREE to stay home, away from other people and public life if they choose not to be vaccinated. The data is available from credible sources around the world. There is no excuse for such mind-numbing ignorance. That’s my opinion, based on peer reviewed data from multiple sources and knowledge of historical and scientific fact…

One reason we know we found the correct family in a sea of similar names is that many of them emigrated to Bornholm, Denmark before moving on to the US. The husförhörslängder shows these moves! Lisa did extra research on her own and sent me the information that she found. I put the names and dates into Ancestry and found matches going all the way back to 1715, mostly from the same couple of parishes in central Skåne. She offered to meet again soon to search the land records, which should show us the exact locations of the houses from the husförhörslängder. Most of these still exist today and I might be able to go see them! I’m lucky to have found someone who is so enthusiastic about genealogy.