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Gertrude was the daughter of Sven Gunnarsson, who was sentenced for transport from Sweden to New Sweden. The family--Sven, his wife, his son Sven, and Gertrude, departed for the colony on the Kalmar Nyckel in Sep 1639.
"Gertrude Svensdotter, born c. 1638 in Sweden, married the New Sweden soldier Jonas Nilsson in 1654 and died in Kingsessing c. 1695, survived by eleven children."[1]
Gertrude Svensdotter migrated to New Sweden with her parents and brothers aboard the Kalmar Nyckel.[2]
Gertrude Svensdotter traveled on the Kalmar Nyckel when she was one year old. Her father Sven Gunnarsson was one of the army deserters who had been rounded up and sent with his family to help settle New Sweden. Her older brother Sven was three, and while on board her brother Olle was born. After his servitude was completed, her father prospered. He joined Rambo and Cock the others in signing the petition against Governor Printz, and like Rambo and Cock he later purchased land north of the Schuylkill. Gertrude was a real frontier woman in spirit. She married a soldier, Joen or Jonas Nilsson, who after eleven years of army service in New Sweden, quit to marry and become a farmer. When Gertrude was pregnant with their first child, her husband left her to return to Sweden. She was a single mom for almost two full years before her husband returned. It is unknown if she cleared land and began farming or lived with relatives. The only reason known for her husband's departure was to collect unpaid wages but it seems there must have been something more. Once reunited, Gertrude and her husband moved to Kingsessing (near some of the Holstein, Rambo, and Cock family members), while her brothers took over their father's 1125-acre plantation that bordered the Delaware River several miles east of there. In 1683 her brothers ceded most of that acreage to an enterprising English Quaker named William Penn, who used the land to build a city of brotherly love. Downtown Philadelphia was built on land once owned by our forebears. www.icyousee.org/kalmar.html
As a Swede, Gertrude's surname was a patronymic. She is Sven's daughter, so her surname is Svensdotter rather than Gunnarson. English style inherited surnames were not adopted in the colony until after the takeover by the English.
Please note: Many profiles for Gertrude and other New Sweden colonists are imported with the location "New Sweden, Aroostook, Maine, USA." This error occurs frequently in Ancestry profiles, because their database will auto fill the place name for the town in Maine when you type "New Sweden" as a location.
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Gertrude is 24 degrees from Herbert Adair, 21 degrees from Richard Adams, 16 degrees from Mel Blanc, 24 degrees from Dick Bruna, 19 degrees from Bunny DeBarge, 31 degrees from Peter Dinklage, 17 degrees from Sam Edwards, 15 degrees from Ginnifer Goodwin, 18 degrees from Marty Krofft, 13 degrees from Junius Matthews, 13 degrees from Rachel Mellon and 16 degrees from Harold Warstler on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
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Categories: Gloria Dei Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | New Sweden