Too many Olof Olsson - which one is the father?

+6 votes
619 views
First... let me say how very much I appreciate everyone's help.

Second... I have a research notes section for Christina Eriksdotter where I have tried to determine who the father of her children was.

Initially I thought Olof the young widower but input from Eva put that idea on the back shelf.

Then I thought most likely Olof the son, but why would he only live with her after his father died. I'm also curious what the note says (maybe something about praying?)

Now I wonder if it was maybe Olof the father. He would have been 78 when Eric Gustaf was born. Not impossible?

I would appreciate thoughts on this!
WikiTree profile: Christina Eriksdotter
in Genealogy Help by Kathy Pelletier G2G6 (6.5k points)

2 Answers

+8 votes
 
Best answer

When you say that "he only live[d] with her after his father died", I think this is a misinterpretation of the hierarchical structure of the record. In the earlier records, Olof the son is the crofter, i.e. the "head" of the household, and is listed first, followed by his brother ("co-crofter") and his family, then other relatives (Olof the father and a sister, listed as the father's daughter) and finally other people living in the household. Since they never married, Christina and her children are listed in the last group (Christina is listed as a servant, Piga), and thus are placed close to the father. The first record that was written after the father's death, by coincidence (probably) is also the first record where the son was not the crofter, and as "previous crofter" he is now also listed after the family of the new crofter - and since he has no further family living with him, Christina is listed directly after him (but still as a servant). I see no reason to believe that their relationship shifted due to the death of the father, or that this would indicate that she had had a closer relationship to the father than to the son. (That's not to say that the father hypothesis is necessarily incorrect, of course, but there is no evidence supporting it in preference to the son.)

The note in the right-hand column, as I mentioned in this post, simply talks about needing to hold a separate examination (either for Olof or for his son Pehr Olof), and thus unfortunately does not add anything useful to this discussion.

As for Anders, the birth record says "torparen därstädes Olof Olofsson", i e the crofter in Kojäng. In the HHE record covering 1809, the father is denoted with a "T" for "Torpare", but on the line of the son the word "son" is struck out and the same "T" has been added, and in the next record (1810-1815) it is only the son who carries this distinction, so presumably the father's ought to have been struck out and replaced as well... It doesn't say when they switched, but it seems likely that it had happened by 1 May 1809 when Anders was born. I also note that Anders is listed as foster son in the 1810 HHE record, and my interpretation is that he was fostered by Olof the son (the head of the household) - although it looks like he is grouped with Anna Olofsdotter (sister of Olof the son, and listed as daughter of Olof the father) and her daughter Anna Christina, they have clearly been added after the record was first drawn up, and placed where they are in order to leave space below Anna's brother Bengt and his wife for their children.

So, all in all, I would go with Olof the son being the father.

by Olov Winstrand G2G6 (9.4k points)
selected by Kathy Pelletier
Thank you Olov for taking the time to explain this!
+4 votes
Hi there:  I was searching for family information on my great grandmother Kristina Bengtsson (19 Mar 1858?- 17 Sept 1900?) she was married to Johan Zetterlund (28 Jan 1845-26 Jun 1938).

 I was on the Geni ancestry site I typed in Kristina Bengtsson.  It listed her father as Bengt Olofsson Lycke & her mother Brita Olofsson.  Brothers listed as Olof, Bernhard, Per, and Aron all with last name Bengtsson. A sister Maret Bengtsdotter. I was wondering how did the last name Bengtsson get connected to Olofsson?

I then switch over to WIFI Tree.. And then I seen your post about Too many Olofsson. What a coincidence. I thought I would message you.
by Vicky Martin G2G Crew (320 points)
Hi Vicky,

I think that Bengt Olofsson Lycke was the son of Olof and his wife's father was also (a different) Olof.

Bengt's children would then be Bengtsson or Bengtsdotter.

I don't know why not Lycke. Perhaps it was just a soldier name and not a family name?

Britta Olofsson likely wasn't named Olofsson; at this time, Swedish women normally did not use their husband's name (even if it was a family name), but Geni tends to assume that they do. If her father was named Olof she would (most likely, see below) have been Olofsdotter, not Olofsson, and it may be that whoever added her to their tree didn't realize this, but with her husband being Olofsson it seems more likely to be the Geni addition of a married name that is the culprit.

As a slightly more thorough explanation of the rest of Kathy's answer: Until the end of the 19th century, most Swedes did not have inherited family names, but instead used patronymics, i.e. a name based on the father's personal name. Thus, Bengt Olofsson was Bengt, the son of Olof, and his sons were Olof (etc), the son of Bengt; Maret (and, presumably, Kristina) where instead the daughter (Swedish: dotter) of Bengt.

During the last few decades of the century - or in some cases even the early 20th - "normal" family names gradually became more common, and often in the form of "frozen" patronymics (with the form of the male patronymic, but without any connection to the father's name). In particular, female-form patronymics in -dotter were regularly transformed into male-form ones in -son around the year 1900; this may be why you've found Kristina as Bengtsson rather than Bengtsdotter (although she may also have decided herself, either alone or together with her siblings, to use the male form instead of the female).

There are no fixed dates for these changes, as they are mostly the result of the individual's own choice. There are families where some children use the father's patronymic (Olofsson in this case) and some their own (Bengtsson). There are cases of "frozen" patronymics (including women with names in -son) before 1850, or occasionally even before 1800, and I have seen records still using -dotter names in the early 1900s. Learning how to handle patronymics is a central part of doing genealogy in Scandinavia, and there are lots and lots of questions about it here on G2G, but it's not really very hard once you know the basic concept. :)

Hi Olof. I think the last women who kept their original -dotter names died in the 1940s - they were old maids, never married. I did searches when I was new to WikiTree in 2016 and became interested in the topic.

As for women with -son names at a time when they should have had -dotter names, Gunnar Fernqvist and I chased down a few thousand of them in 2016-2017 and got them corrected in WikiTree. I think they originate in old Lattarday-Saint transcriptions (mostly from birth records) by people who did not take the genderedness of the patronymic system in account. So they spread from FamilySearch to Ancestry and Geni.
Frozen patronymic do exist even in the 18th century even if it is very rare. One example is the family a couple of generations after hauptman Lars Assarsson with temporarly frozen patronymic https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Assarsson-19 His daughter was called Asser, but the granddaughters after his sons were called Assarsson.

I also think some women were given and kept their patronymic name during the 20-th century, even if it's maybe even rarer. Haven't looked deeper into it, but some examples from Sveriges Dödbok is:

Birgit Olofsdotter born 1922, died as a widow 2013

Gerd Louise Olofsdotter born 1944, died married 2016

Karin Nilsdotter born 1945, died as a widow 2018
Hi Axel! I wrote about some of the early examples of frozen patronymics back in 2017 here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Early_frozen_patronymics_Sweden
I'm still a manager of the page, I could open it for editing if you wish to add some.

As for the "lateborn" women with -dotter names I think it has been somewhat fashionable (in small circles ;-) to use -dotter names after the general abandonment of the patronymic system. It certainly is today, but I haven't studied the history of it.
I took a quick peek at Gerd Louise Olofsdotter in the indexes. She seems to have been given Olofsdotter as one of her christening names, and only started using it as her last name in the 1980s.

I have seen the same thing with boys given a -son name after the given name of their father as one of their christening names, in the 20th century.

To me there is a difference between these consciously decided namings by the parents and the old automatic system.
Thanks for the link to the page! Assarsson is ancestors to me, and it took some time for me and my mother to understand why the daughters were named Asser or Assarsson so early. It looks like a similar story as for Håkansson in Kalmar. I could add a new section for Assarsson on Öland.

And yes, patronymic names after the new "namelaw"/namnförordningen that came in 1901 looks to be more consciously selected names. Today it looks like patronymic surnames are once again becoming more common and even matronymic names are chosen.
The page is now whitelocked.
Thanks! Have added a section, but it might need some editing and I will do some more research on the descendants of Lars Assarsson.

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