Comments on Johannes Andersson (Hansson) Lind

Question

On 31 Jan 2022 Emily (Chambers) Volz wrote on Hansson-2011:

Emily Chambers (Volz), Chambers-5461. Carl Henrik Lind (Lind-840) was my great-grandfather. I would very much appreciate learning how the very informative history above was added to this profile because it adds a layer of confusion as to who Carl Henrik's father was. I have previously seen parts of the Estate Inventory of Johan Andersson Lind, but was unaware that they were taken by surprise at being disinherited. Malvina Gosselman Lind, Carl's mother died many years prior to the death of Johan Andersson Lind when Carl Henrik was 21. I have two photos of Johan Andersson Lind which I inherited from my grandmother, Sally Elisabet Lind (Lind-813), who was Carl Henrik's daughter. I know it is he because one of the photos is in a Swedish news story about him after his death. Malvina never publicly revealed the name of Carl's father, but her grandchildren certainly did not think that Johan W. A. Lind was Carl Henrik's father. From what is written here, I wonder what could be true about the father if Carl believed that he was a son of Johan W. H. Lind at the time of the Inventory. It implies that his mother never told him, which seems unlikely. There is more on this subject on the Lind-840 profile sheet, including speculation about Carl's father. I would really appreciate hearing from the person who added the above information, and anyone who has something to add.

Answer 1

Johan Lind, linked to this question was the father of Johan Wilhelm Albert Lind, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Lind-827 , who eventually married Malvina Gosselman, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gosselman-1

This is a timeline for Malvina and her sons:

Malvina Eugenia Hildegard Gosselman was born 4 January 1844.
Her father died died 25 November 1852.

Malvina Gosselman had two sons out of wedlock:
Carl Henrik, 18 June 1864
Henrik Casimir, 20 September 1866

They were both registered as born to unknown parents - this was also common practice for children born out of wedlock in Stockholm at this time. Women had a legal right to give birth anonymously - and in Stockholm it was also possible to actually remain anonymous. Less so out in the rural parishes where everybody knew everybody.

Malvina Gosselman married Johan Wilhelm Albert Lind 18 December 1870
Carl Henrik was 6 and Henrik Casimir 4 years old

Then on 25 January 1871 they acknowledged Carl Henrik and Henrik Casimir as their sons in common. The note added in the birth book for Adolf Fredrik parish concerns both boys and is available online.
In the birth book for Klara parish the vicar has entered the names of the parents, referring to a similar note, that does not seem to be online.

The boys undoubtedly grew up with Johan Wilhelm Albert Lind as their father.

Johan Wilhelm Albert Lind died 18 March 1876
Carl Henrik was 12 and Henrik Casimir 10 years old

The boys are both mentioned in Johan Wilhelm Albert Lind's probate as his legitimized children.

Malvina married Otto Wilhelm Bodström 10 June 1878.
The marriage record refers to her two children and the probate of their father. Inheritance had to be sorted out when a widow remarried.

Then, on 2 March 1883 Malvina Gosselman signed a document retracting the admission of her late husband that he was the natural father of her two sons.

At some point in time an entry was also made in the probate of Johan Wilhelm Albert Lind, changing the sons to stepsons and adding his father, Johan Lind the elder as heir of his now childless son.

Less than three years later Malvina died,  4 November 1885.
Carl Henrik was 21 and Henrik Casimir 19

Old Johan Lind died 14 April 1897.
Carl Henrik was 33 and Henrik Casimir 31

The estate inventory with probate for Johan Lind was held 13 July 1897.

At this occasion the Lind brothers presented their inheritance claim by proxy, showing a copy of the legitimization note. Their claim was refuted by the lawyer representing the rest of the family, showing the document of Malvina's retraction.

The question is: when did Malvina's two sons stop believing that Johan Wilhelm Albert Lind was their father?

Comments

Malvina Gosselman was my 2nd great-grandmother. I'd like to be able to learn who added the biographical information for Hansson-2011 (Johan Andersson Lind) to learn where some of it was found because he was the father-in-law of Malvina Gosselman, and I have two photos of him.

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Yes, I am well aware that Malvina is your ancestress.

You can look at the "Changes" tab of the profile for Johan Hansson Lind to see who did the changes. But I can also tell you right here that it was me :-)

I spent a lot of time last summer researching this family in church records and old newspapers.

I should take this opportunity to say that Johannes has an incorrect Last Name at Birth. His father was Anders Hansson, and at this time the -son names were patronymics, not family names. Johannes was born Andersson and never recorded as Hansson. Then he got the surname Lind from his uncle and warden Anders Lind in Strömstad.

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One of the crucial points in this story is in the estate inventory of Johan Lind. You wrote: "I wonder what could be true about the father if Carl believed that he was a son of Johan W. H. Lind at the time of the Inventory. It implies that his mother never told him, which seems unlikely."

I don't know what is likely or not, but the fact remains that Carl and his brother sent a representative to old Johan Lind as if he was their grandfather. They must have paid the representative a fee.

Old Johan Lind died in 1897, which was 12 years after the death of Malvina and 21 years after the death of Johan W A Lind.

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Thanks for telling me.  May I ask what your particular interest is in this matter? You have gone to a lot of effort and seem to care about it. As it happens, I had the help of a distant Swedish cousin (found via our DNA match) who found a lot of what you found. He said the translation to English was difficult because of the old Swedish expression. I tried Google translation, but they are hard to understand because they leave some words in Swedish. I’d like to find a better translation program that works better for genealogical explorations. Do you know of one?

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My particular interest is in keeping WikiTree accurate.

My general interest is in Swedish genealogy, where I spend so much time that by now I have gone far beyond my own kin. I have been a WikiTree member for six years and often contribute to connecting profiles to be presented as anchors of the week in the Connection Finder. Over the years I have helped several WikiTreers with Swedish roots to smash their Swedish brickwall (not everybody has Swedish DNA cousins to rely on).

As for a translation program, I'm afraid there isn't one that can stomach old Swedish vocabulary. There often is no exact correspondence in English, anyway, because it refers to things that have different "job descriptions" in different countries. I do use Google translate, mostly to nudge my memory. For some things it pays to use Wikipedia and go back and forth between the Swedish and the English version. Sometimes my fat old paper dictionary is better. When I'm unsure about an old word I look in the Swedish-Swedish online dictionary https://www.saob.se/ or look for discussions at Anbytarforum. https://forum.rotter.se/

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Thanks very much. You are right to question how Carl Henrik and Henrik Casimir found out they were not the sons of Johan W. A. Lind. I had concluded that they must have been, in a spite of a letter from Sweden my grandmother received about 100 years after the death of Malvina. The letter may have been from her last living sister, but I don't actually know who sent it. It stated in effect that "...it can now be told that Carl XV sired Carl Henrik Lind..." which is I have spent a lot of time trying to find and understand what's true and what's not true. I appreciate what you added to the discussion. Malvina's repudiation letter rekindled my interest in trying to discover whether Carl XV sired Carl Henrik. Our Y-chromosome line is broken, so it's pretty difficult to figure out. My mother's DNA matches however include people who show descent from Maria Malm in their trees, another person whose grandmother is listed in Wikipedia as a possibly sired by Oscar II, as well as other people whose trees show descent from the Bernadottes.

Answer 2

A brief compilation of vital dates in the life of Johan Lind the elder:

Johan Lind was born in Gesäter 19 May 1802.
He lost his father in 1807 and his mother in 1808.
He grew up with an uncle in Strömstad.

Johan Lind eventually became a successful businessman in Stockholm.
He had two children with Gustava Albertina Sahlberg under promise of marriage.
Emma Amalia, 1 September 1839
Johan Wilhelm Albert, 6 January 1842

However, Gustafva died from consumption 10 March 1842, so they never married.
Her children grew up with their father.

Johan Lind then had three children with his housekeeper, Anna Maria Lundberg:
Jenny Elisabeth, 13 June 1845
Gustav Adolf, 6 May 1848
Elin Lamartina, 17 May 1850

Johan Lind married Anna Maria Lundberg 30 May 1852. They had two more children:
Maria Cecilia, 20 October 1852
Anna Helena, 12 February 1860

Anna Maria died in the consequences of Anna Helena's birth, 23 February 1860

Johan Lind died 14 April 1897.

Johan Lind was far from unique in fathering so many children "under promise of marriage" and then, eventually, marrying the mother of his children. This was very common in Stockholm at this time - there was even a word for it: Stockholmsäktenskap (Stockholm marriage). In 1860 about 40% of all children in Stockholm were born out of wedlock, whereas in Sweden in general this figure was about 10%.