Födelse- och dopböcker or birth and baptism registers begin in 1869 in the Tånnö church archives at Riksarkivet. This can be a challenging area for research because of fires that destroyed a number of church records. However, it is possible to verify the 1863 birth date of Anders Gustaf Linnell, the firstborn child of Johan…
My long-running daydream about a someday trip to Scandinavia has been updated to planning a trip that will take place within the next few months. Yippee (and eek)! This means my 2022 genealogy goal of finding all the living descendants of my Swedish and Norwegian 4th great-grandparents moved up to the tip top of my…
How do people in a neighborhood react when they learn an alleged serial killer had been living among them? Herman Webster Mudgett (1861 – 1896), better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes or H. H. Holmes, was an American con artist and alleged serial killer who lived at South Wallace Avenue and West 63rd Street…
My French third great grandmother Marie Anne Schmitt (née Gury) died sometime between June 1860 and June 1870. According to the 1860 census, Marie Anne (called Mary here), her husband Nicolaus (recorded as Nick) and eight of their children lived in Cincinnati, presumably in the Over the Rhine neighborhood. Their youngest children Joseph (5) and…
I don’t recall how I stumbled upon the information that led me to Anna, but her married surname rang a bell. I’d seen it on a passenger list, connected to a man who was coming to America to see his sister. The passenger (Johan Gustaf ~ line 8 below), and the sister he was joining…
My dad’s paternal grandparents married young. Very young actually, Gustav Robert Mangels was 18 when he and 16 year old Esther Ingeborg Clarin tied the knot. They were married in a Lutheran church which may explain the embellishment of their ages on their marriage certificate. Both Gustav and Esther had unhappy childhood homes. Gustav’s father…
Twin (tvilling) girls were born in the Ny family of Tånnö, Jönköping, Sweden on the 8th of January 1910; Anna Gunborg Kristina and Greta Tarborg Katrina. The girls were baptized January 27th. In addition to their births, the entries in Tånnö’s Births and Baptisms Book includes information about the girls’ parents. According to the record…
Carl Magnus Carlson was the second of four illegitimate children born to my 2nd great-grandmother Maja Stina Carlsdotter. The page on which Carl’s birth was recorded tells more than just that; Swedish records offer a wealth of related information. The pages shown here are among the thousands of records available at no cost on the…
My quest continues ~ I’m still searching for the descendants of my Norwegian and Swedish 4th great-grandparents. My focus this year is on those who left Scandinavia and settled in North America. My Norwegian 4th great-grandparents Christian Tronson (1779-1852) and Gunvor Mortensdatter (1788-1875) had 10 known children. Several of the ten left Norway behind, immigrating…
My second great-grandfather was given the name Pehr August when he entered the world on 01 Jan 1858 in Svenarum, Jönköping, Sweden. He was the 5th of eight children born to spiksmed (nail-smith) Carl Tolf and his wife Helena Stina Åhman. Pehr was just 11 years old when his oldest brother Gustaf emigrated to America.…
When I started researching my family history in the 1980s, I knew very little about any of my ancestors, even less about their countries of origin, and next to nothing of our shared heredity. Neither of my parents were very interested in genealogy. I didn’t hold out much hope of discovering vintage family photos or…
Two explanations about fires hindering research in the Swedish parishes of Tånnö, Värnamo and Voxtorp are here and here. There are workarounds of course, but pre-1860 research would consume many hours and yield few results because all three parishes belonged to the district of Östbo ~ and there was a fire there too. Which is…
A genealogy filing project kept bringing me back to the cousin quest I began years ago. Add to that a recurring daydream about a future trip to Scandinavia, inspired by the Thompson sisters in my family tree. Gradually my 2022 genealogy goal changed from working my way through a 67-page list of birth dates, to…
Two hundred and fifty four years ago a young Swedish couple celebrated the birth of my 5th great-grandfather Carl Tolf. Carl’s birth was entered in the church record book with a quill pen – can you imagine? Unimaginable to the priest who recorded the event, I am able to admire his handwriting from the comfort…
Robert Edward Plum’s intended bride Elma Rascher was born on the fourth of January 1887. When Elma was 27, her big sister posted an engagement announcement in three St Louis Missouri newspapers; the St Louis Globe Democrat and the St Louis Star and Times both on 18 June 1914, and the St Louis Post Dispatch…
where2look4ancestors 