Did she exist? and if so, was she really a -sson

Question

Profile for Sophia Paulsson, purportedly born in Sweden about 1635, married to Anders Joransson in New Castle Delaware in 1656, died in Delaware 1717.

No sources. Had she remained in Sweden she would no doubt have remained a Pålsdotter. Would she really have used the male partonym in Delaware?

Comments

Eva Eva its easier to find her if she consequently has the wrong name

• Geni
• Wikia they cheat and have no surname
• MyTrees
• Rootsweb De-OldSwedes

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Not having a surname isn't cheating, except at WikiTree.

And, as you can see, I'll probably not change her, but mark her as a False Error for 912. Plenty of other errors in her report, but I'm not touching them.

Answer 1

I don't know what her name was, but I did find an Ancestry.com database entry that appears to be the basis (or part of the basis?) for that WikiTree profile, so I added it to the profile as a "source."

Comments

OK, since it's a marriage record and not just an Ancestry family tree, perhaps I should mark her male patronymic down as  a False Error. I came across her when doctoring Error 912.

I'll wait a bit to hear if anbody speaks against that.

And thanks for checking!

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That marriage "record" I found is a very weak source. Ancestry did not show me anything resembling an actual record. It's nearly impossible to figure out where most of Ancestry's "U.S. and International Marriage Records" came from. This particular one seems to have been extracted from a "family group sheet" identified as Source 1164.190. It might not be any better than an Ancestry Family Tree. 

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Uh-oh!!

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OK, the wikia link given by Magnus does seem to be sourced - although no citations are given, it just mentions various deeds and "the first census of Delaware". The same text is used at Geni (easier to read there). This text, which seems to be the closest to any source, never mentions her as anything but Sophia, wife/widow of so-and-so. (which is very much like the practices in Sweden at this same time).

The wikia page is not very well organized - and contains some other Paulssons, which may have "bled back" on Sophia. She should probably be an UNKNOWN, after all.

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I think that the first census lists the husband, not also Sophia.

Answer 2

Thank you, Eva.  She needs to be renamed Sophia Pålsdotter.

For New Sweden settlers born in Sweden, we are using the patronymic.

Their North American-born children should be assessed on a case by case basis.  Sometimes the settler dropped the patronymic before having children, but in most cases those first generation children should also have the patronymic as the LNAB, and the "new" name as CLN.  U.S. sources inevitably use the Americanized name, which is not historically accurate and was sometimes applied retroactively by descendants eager to anglicize them.

You'll find many, many, many errors in LNAB for NS profiles.  Our project is new and still less than ten members.  Please join the NS team if you can, the colony is unusual and interesting.  They're one of the only immigrant groups to North America who treated the Indigenous peoples with respect.  Quakers get a lot of credit for their peaceful relationship with the indigenous peoples, but they Swedes were there first & laid the groundwork for that relationship.  Please be sure to tag any questions with new_sweden. 

- Heather, New Sweden Project coordinator

Comments

Thank you, Heather.

It is very good to know that the Sweden-born women should bring their female patronymic with them on to American soil. There are a few more caught by the report for error 912.

In this case I am not sure that there is even any evidence that her father was a Pål/Paul.

With similar cases in Sweden I do not hesitate for long to make them UNKNOWN. I'm afraid there are a few GEDCOMs of very low quality patched together from unsourced green leaves at Ancestry, containing a lot of women in the 1600s who have just been assigned their husband's patronymic as LNAB. I search for them, if there are dates and locations to go on - and when I do find family trees for them they usually appear only as "wife Karin". When there IS a father, I give them the female patronymic.

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The only thing we know in this case is that some unidentified genealogist recorded her name as Paulsson. Let's not invent any additional details.

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Yes, I support changing name to Unknown if we can't find a source.

Membership in the Swedish Colonial Society gives you access to their journal. I checked there, but her LNAB wasn't mentioned in the article on her 2nd husband's family. I asked Joe Angelo to take a look, he's got a great library and is doing fantastic work sourcing these profiles. Here's a spreadsheet of New Sweden Settlers he's working on. We also have a list of settlers needing PPP if anyone reading this could help out.  Thank you!

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"Me too" to the first sentence.

Can I leave her in the hands of the project?

These early settlers are SO difficult from the Swedish side, you really need to be a specialist, i.e. know about and be confident with the specific types of records mentioning them (which I don't even know what they may be).

Otherwise I'm pretty confident getting into parish records from the 1600s, when they exist for a given parish and there are clues as to dates and locations. Just knowing somebody came from Sweden doesn't help a lot; not even knowing they came from Skåne or Västergötland.

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Sounds good, Eva. If you put [[Category: New Sweden Unsourced Profiles]] at the top of the biography when you find one, project members will take care of them.  

Tusen tack! : )

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Thanks.

Copied to my scratchfile.