where2look4ancestors

May 5 to May 11

BIRTHS:

Was it fun I wonder, when a child was born on her grandmother’s birthday 157 years ago? Or did people not make as much of those events as we do today?

Maria Josephina Karlsdotter was born on this day in 1867 in Hökhuvud, Uppsala, Sweden. Her grandmother (my 3rd great-grandmother) Brita Carin Andersdotter was also born May 5th in Börstil, Uppsala, Sweden.

Brita Carin lived from 1810 to 1900. During that time her daughter Maja Stina gave birth to four children marked in the Swedish church record books as okänd, meaning the father is unknown. As you can imagine, this was frowned upon.

How did Brita Carin feel about her daughter’s relationship with the alleged unknown father of four of her grandchildren? Maya Stina would later marry a man of questionable character who may have fathered all six of her children, the four before marriage and two after.

Was Karl Johan Andersson Molin the father of all Maya Stina’s children? This is a question I hope to solve using DNA.

MARRIAGES:

On another Swedish branch of my family tree, a marriage took place between Frida Katrina Tolf and Carl Johan Youngberg on 07 May 1887 in Batavia, Kane, Illinois. As I mentioned here, Frida immigrated with her parents and three of her eight siblings in 1878. Carl had been born in the same Swedish parish as Frida so it’s likely they knew one another for many years before they married. Carl came to the U.S. in 1883. In November of that year he started working at the Pullman Palace Car Company where sleeping cars for the railroad were built. During his career there, Carl progressed from being a mechanic, to a finisher, then a cabinetmaker and finally an inspector.

DEATHS:

On yet another of my Swedish branches, Emma, one of four Peterson siblings who immigrated from Tånnö, Jönköping, Sweden, died 07 May 1937. Emma married a German immigrant named George Stubenrauch in 1888 and the couple had one daughter, Elizabeth Louise, who was born the same year. After Louise married, George and Emma followed her and her husband Samuel Edwin Barton when they moved from Illinois to Colorado and Wyoming and then settled in California.

As a seeker of stories, I am always interested in learning more about the people in my family tree. Are you related to anyone I mentioned above?