Category and/or project for Walloons who immigrated to Sweden

Question

I have now come to my Wallonian ancestors and I am wondering how to categorize them and if there should be a project for them.

Towards the end of the 16th century and in the beginning of the 17th a large number of people immigrated to Sweden from Wallonia to work in the metal industry. Wallonia is an area in Belgium. Some moved back but some stayed and lots of Swedes can now find Walloons among their ancestors. See wikipedia for more info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walloons

The Society of Swedish Wallon Descendants have done a lot of research on the original immigrants and their descendants.

So should there be a project? What should it be called? There are Walloons in other parts of the world too, like the US and Brazil.

I would like to mark at least three generations by using categories for my Walloons. What should that category be called? Walloons in Sweden? Wallonian Immigrants to Sweden? Wallonian Name Studies? Swedish Wallonian Name Studies?

Comments

Just saying, I have at least one walloon family too that I didn't get into wikitree yet.

---

Looking forward to seeing them here Maria.

Answer 1

As you know, I have a few Walloons in my ancestry (some in the tree, some not yet entered). But mine dropped their Walloon names way back - and I have the feeling that among Walloon Descendants it is the name that counts. So a category could gather all those who kept the name, perhaps?

It would be interesting to find some connections with Walloons elsewhere, which would seem feasible in WikiTree.

Comments

Yes I agree that it should be the ones that kept the name, or as far as you can trace the name (mine ended with the girls). I want it to not just be a name study so maybe we could first have the name studies and then gather them under a category like Swedish Wallonian Name Studies ....

I too would like to be able to connect with otter Walloons.

---

I guess it is obvious that I'm not very interested in working on this :-)

But here are my thoughts: I cannot see anything wrong in making another subcategory of Swedish immigrants and name it Walloons in Sweden or something like that - the choice is yours. I guess I do have a few that would fit in the category.

Then it would be fairly easy to look up a few of the Walloon names that are already in the tree, and check which profiles belong in the category - there will, of course, usually also be French or Belgian people in the list, but there are relevant profiles already here. Gathering them in a category would be a start.

---

Thanks for you input Eva. Great advice that I believe I will follow.

Answer 2

I just wanted to mention that I have interest in this as either a category or a project but because of my lack of evidence I didn't want to put my two cents in about it.

There was a really cute moment in my family where my great grandmother got off of the phone with her sister and said "all these years I thought I was Swedish, but it turns out I'm French". So we've suspected Walloons on that side for years, but my grasp of Swedish gets worse every year so I've not been able to do the research that I'd like. The research I have done on my Swedish great-grandmother's family cuts off fairly recently in genealogical terms but again, I feel it was more to do with my poor Swedish than anything else.

I'll get there, and it'd be great to see the distinction here.

Comments

Thank you Dina,

Let me know if I can help you with you research.

Answer 3

Thanks Lena for starting the category Walloons_in_Sweden. I have categorized my own few and added one more guy, Lorentz Lycka, whom I came across today because he had a wife who was a Johansson when she should have been a Johansdotter.

Lorentz Lycka had a grandfather (not yet in the tree) who was Nicolas Lucas when he came to Sweden. I haven't follow this family through the books - it seems fairly big and multigenerational; some children are in the tree, imported at the same time as Lorentz. Anyway, it seems their name was variously spelled Lucas (if the priest knew French) or Lycka if the French pronounciation was written down in Swedish.

I take it that the category is applicable to all who still carry the Walloon name? Or do we want another cutoff point?

Comments

I just wrote this explanatory text at the category page for Immigrants to the iron industry of Sweden:

This category is intended for the people who actually immigrated. Subcategories, on the other hand, may contain descendants born in Sweden but carrying a recognizable variant of their immigrated ancestor's family name.

Guess there is a Stockhaus category that should be brought into this net as well. Not the Walloons, but the immigrated smith families.

---

Thank you Eva. I think descendants with the name is the way to go and keep track of them. The Melot name died out with Anthonie's daughters....

---

Yes, mine all lost the name early, too.

Or, I'm not sure about Robillard. I discovered Petter Robilia very recently and I'm from a daughter. There may have been a male line that did not come to Skinnskatteberg.