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Monday, November 3, 2014

postheadericon A Break-Through from Sweden

There are many genealogy groups on Facebook.  I first joined one dedicated to Ancestry.com.  There was a lot of negative and downright mean posts so I left that for Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness.  When I asked a question there about my German heritage I was directed to the German Genealogy page.  Since I had questions about my Swedish heritage I joined Swedish Genealogy, also.  There were people in that group that were actually Sweden natives living there now.  I asked about a few of the words on this document:


The actual place of birth is "Born October 3, 1848 in Pershytte village, Hedemora parish, Stora Kopparberg County" (today Dalarna county).

That long first word before "Carl Andersson" (Hammunsegaresoneu) means "son of a man that owns his own small farm".  Who could have guessed THAT one!

I had included this photo in the post assuming that one of those boys was my great-grandfather.:

I received THIS comment that the photo of the two boys had to be taken after 1893 (Carl left in 1870) so probably his brothers.  Also the photo studio on the back was established in 1893.  Then he saw "1910" somewhere on the card so THAT was when it was taken.

One of the members did a little research and found one of the brothers stayed in Sweden, had 5 sons and 1 daughter, and lived in Hedemora during the time between 1893 and 1900.

I have NO idea what to enter as Charles/Carl's father's name.  I settled for Hammunsegaresoneu, the word for Man Who Owns His Own Small Farm...I can change it if more information becomes available.

Facial Recognition supports that these are Charles and his bride, Mary Ann.

I have their State of Michigan Return of Marriage.  That just states Charles was born in Hedemora, Sweden, and Mary Ann was born in Hereford, England.

 I guess I should join the British Genealogy page on Facebook.  At least there won't be translation problems, I hope.
Thursday, August 28, 2014

postheadericon Return to Gen-Sanity

With the disappointing and confusing results of my DNA test, I lost enthusiasm for genealogy for a while.  When I looked back at the results a few weeks ago I found it entirely different.  Now it says:

Europe 100%

  • Great Britain 41%
  • Europe West 38%
  • Scandinavia 8%
  • Europe East 8%
     
    Trace Regions 5%
  • Italy/Greece 2%
  • Ireland 2%
  • Finland/Northwest Russia < 1%



Now THAT"s better!

Comparing two unknown photos with other known photos I was able to determine that these two former mystery people were my great-grandparents, Mary Ann Powell (from England) and Carl Andersson (from Sweden).

 Carl emigrated first to England, then, 6 years later, to the US through Canada.  Mary Ann emigrated to the US through Canada at the same time and they immediately came to Adrian, Michigan and were married.  I have their "return of marriage" papers.

Carl (now changed to Charles Anderson) was 26 and Mary Ann, 22.  I believe the photos above were taken around the time of their marriage.  The date of wedding was given as November 12, 1874.





I also have Carl/Charles' papers applying, through his church to emigrate from Sweden.  It has a date that I can read as 1848 3/10 which must have been his birth date and matches with the age at the time of his marriage.  I still need to find a translator for this "old" Swedish language.

All-in-all, I was pretty happy with my findings.  Now I also just found a British census from when Mary Ann was 9 and in England.  The parents names match information I was given by my grandmother.  It gives Mary Ann's birth place and place of residence at age 9 as Bristol, England, not Hereford, as I had been told.  We had a book about Hereford that had passed down from my grandfather.  It was just word of mouth that she was born in Hereford.  Now I know better.