Is a Vikings or Gotland Project existing? Id like to start one if not.

Question

Im interested in a Viking project, specifically the Vikings from the place called the Viking capitol of the world, the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. My maternal line is from Gotland up until, 1906 so I have a vested interest. Can someone tell me if there is something already existing regarding this?  I couldnt find anything and its time for me to move on this. Any advice or someone knowledgeable about projects for Vikings or about Gotland that I might be overlooking? My tag "Gotland" has some interest. .There are 6 followers and I want to try to engage us in a group. We are just floating, no communication yet. Thanks. 

Comments

You can always contact the others with the tag Gotland directly. A couple are quite active adding profiles, others less so.

---

The Vikings came from many coastal regions. There is no Viking capital of the world.

---

Please pardon, Viking Treasure capital of the world.

---

Never heard of that either. Where did you read about it?

---

Have you ever heard it called the "Pearl of the Baltic"?  Its so common to turn up buried "Viking" hoards that the archealogists have referred to it as the viking treasure capitol. Ive been enjoying studying the history of Gotland and Norse Mythology-  (Sagas, Eddas...) for many years and these are some of the names Ive seen the island referrred to as.  It really is an incredible place- if I could, it'd be the one place Id go to in the whole world.

---

So will a Viking project start? That would be amazing. I picked up on a few different types of Viking dna through mytrueancestry. I would be very interested in a Viking project. I'm really new here and don't know how to start one myself.

---

HI!

We could start it help each other out, Id love that.

Tamara.flora@gmail.com is quicker than wiki for me, to at least get going. I work a Lot.

Thanks :)

Answer 1

I don't know about any specific projects for Gotland, but the island belonged, variously through history to Sweden and Denmark, was for a period more or less controlled by a band of privateers called the Viatlie-brothers, and the city of Visby was for a few centuries part of the Hanseatic league.  It's an island with a rich heritage.

I would recommend that you join the Sweden project given that Gotland has been part of Sweden since (more or less) 1645 and is now a province of that country, and meaning that any recent church records are to be found in that country's archives. The leaders, Eva Ekebland and Maggie Andersson, are excellent and incredibly helpful.

I noticed also that your relevant family names are Strom and Stromlund.  You should take care to spell these properly, using the appropriate umlauts.  It should be Ström and Strömlund and I would recommend that you update the existing profiles to match this.  You can type an ö on your keyboard by holding down the alt key and then typing 148 on your numeric key-pad.  alt+132 gives ä and alt+134 gives å.  For the period before, roughly, 1880/1890 it was unusual for women to take their husband's surnames, and it only became common practice after the name reform in 1901, so I would avoid using married names for anyone before this period, sticking to maiden names only.

It is a significant task to take a "normal" line of people beyond, say, 1650 in Swedish records.  The vikings were active in the 700-1000:s or thereabouts, and to get back to that period you'll need some sort of aristocratic connection.  Vikings came from all over Scandinavia and had no capital per se - they were not an organised nation but rather a number of significantly smaller chiefdoms.  Two major settlements leap to mind: Birka, near modern Stockholm, and Hedeby, in present-day Denmark. Vikings as a project is likely best covered by EuroAristo or one of the other Scandinavian projects, e.g. Denmark, Sweden, or Norway.

Comments

The widow Strömlund is a good example from the period in the late 19th century, which is right around the time when it began becoming a popular thing to do, if I'm not entirely misinformed (which is quite possible).  I'd love to see the examples from the 1780:s or 1790:s that Tamara mentions.  As you know, there are, of course, plenty of occasions when widows are referred to as "Svensson's widow" or "the widow Svensson", but this isn't to say that the name was used as a surname by the widow, just that she was the widow of her husband by that name.

Noted about FamilySearch - I have a myHeritage subscription, but hardly ever use FamilySearch.  Maybe they're cooperating somehow...

---

Absolutely!  I'm loving the picture of the stone. :)

---

Yes, of course I know about "Brodin's widow Anna" and do not take her name to be "Anna Brodin" because of that. Widows being assigned the surname (never the patronym) of their deceased husband is a different thing that I keep coming across - I'm not sure how early. I should try to collect the cases into a study. Only I forget where I have them

---

Hahaha!  If only I could remember everything I've forgotten!

It would, actually, be an interesting study - statistically, when did women start taking their husband's surnames (rater than patronymics)?  Ever fancied doing a PhD? 

I'm not actively working on my more recent ancestors at the moment, but I've got some "fancy-ish" people in the late 19th century, so I'll make sure to pay attention when I get around to them.  For "normal" people, I've not seen it in practice, just their maiden names.

---

You forget that I already did a PhD

I haven't done any fullscale statistical studies, but a number of case studies on different aspects of Swedish naming practices, you find them in Category Swedish Names.

I know that with the "freezing" of patronyms into surnames there were women who started out with a -dotter name, then had it converted to a -son name based on the name of their father and then ended their lives with their husband's -son name (frozen patronym) as a married name.

---

As usual, a wealth of material for me to read that I didn't know about - thanks for putting it together, Eva!

---

Hi-

Eva you took the trouble to find an example of a  wife taking her husbands name.. I often  wondered why some last names are not from parent names particularly and I thought that maybe( im sure all my peeps were country people) is because the name was a description instread. Ive lways figures that Stromlund was a person who lived near or worshipped at the "water groves" or " hidden wells"  or more mudane - being from near the swamps or river. . Anyway- heres another "Stromlund" example. I think it says that he was the head of the family in one meaning or the other and she is his wife,hustra. This is close to the meanings I think.  

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSGH-9Q4Y-V?cc=2790465

---

Matt-

I told you Id started to doc my moms line, and I dont have sources (much) yet because I think it was called Queen dowagers regiment, (ryttares)I think my guy was from Hogsby and his wife and other wives of the men lived together in little commune type farms because the guys were always gone.

Anyway, I havent forgotten :)

---

Hi Flora,

No worries - I' was curious as I've never heard anyone called a Queen's rider before.  When you find the records for the person I'll be happy to help you interpret them.  In the meantime, a better way to reference it would be to say that the person in question was "a cavalryman in the Dowager Queen's regiment" which is a little less ambiguous.  There were, I think, three different Queen's regiments so I'm not sure which specific one your guy would have been from.

As to the wives living in communes, that would be peculiar indeed.  Normally, the wives of soldiers stayed in the soldier's crofts that were assigned to the soldier and his family.  In general, soldiers (and their families) were responsible to look after themselves so she would have had it tough, but could possibly have received assistance from the rest of the local parishioners.

In the Household Examination roll you sent along above, you're correct.  It says:

Strömlund, O., backstuguhjon, born 1794

Strömlund, M. C. hustru, b. 1788.

Note that it's "hustru" with a u, not an a, which, as you say, means "wife".  "Backstuguhjon" means he lived in a pauper's cottage.  See Wikipedia on "Backstuga" for a better idea of the situation.

There is an astonishingly good review of Swedish naming practices by Ingela Martenius available here: Swedish Names

---

Thanks for answering about the household record, Matt!
Martenius is really very good, admirably concise! I notice she does mention the widows in one sentence :-)

As for the household record, it is a little unusual, because it is just a copy of the excerpt sent to the Centran Bureau of Statistics. There was a fire in the vicary of Källunge in 1940 (where the records of the parishes in the pastorate were stored), records between 1875 and 1939 were either destroyed of badly damaged. Older records seem to have been stored elsewhere, fortunately. (Info from SVAR - Swedish only).

Answer 2

Anton Olof Strömlund was born in Närs, Othem, Gotland 24 July 1881. His parents were Olof Ferdinand Strömlund and Cicilia Gustafsdotter. The source is the birth book for Othem: Othem kyrkoarkiv, Födelse- och dopböcker, SE/ViLA/23066/C I/5 (1866-1885), image: 00010250_00052 that can be accessed for free at the Swedish National Archives. I think the profile needs better sources than "grandma's info".

Checking MyHeritage (I have a research subscription but no subscription for a tree) for Anton Olof Strömlund I find him in several trees. I haven't gone through them all, but the first one I happened to check went back to the second half of the 1600s in some parts. I also found Anton Olof in your tree there, without parents - I suppose you have not been able to use any information from other trees since you have filled up your quota of 250 free profiles.

Comments

Thanks Eva. Can I contact you on your page? Actually, thats correct except Ive "e" used in Ceclia's name. Gotland is also referred to as the Pearl of the Baltic sea.  The Riskarvet (sp) is where I found the info about a ggr grf rhat was a Queens "Ryder"  a horseman. Too cool.

---

So, you have not looked at the primary source I linked to.
There it is clearly Cicilia with dots over all the three "i".

I do not doubt that it may be spelled Cecilia in some other source - and I'm quite sure that when this line has been studied by Swedish genealogists and put into the early genealogy softwares like DISGEN the names were all standardized, which was actually very practical - but very often not true to the spellings in the original sources (which could vary quite widely for any given name).

Edit: Tamara edited her comment after I posted this.