Trying to find Anders Jönsson

Question

Hi everyone,

I'm posting here as a kind of Hail Mary on my great-great grandfather, Anders Jönsson.  The family has been trying to locate his ancestors for decades, without success.  Since my family came to the US quite recently, we are still in contact with family back in Sweden-Anders is as much a mystery to them as he is to me.  Here is what I've been able to find about him: his date of birth is ambiguous-according to two household visitations from early in his marriage, he was born either February 23/29, 1834 or March 23/29, 1834.  He died March 20, 1927 in Greningen, Jämtland.  His death record indicates he was born on December 13, 1834; his death record doesn’t name his parents.  The points of consistency were that he was born in 1834 in Grums, Värmland and that he died on March 20, 1927.  According to the Flyttningslängder., SE/ÖLA/11094/B/1 (1861-1875), for Stugun, he left Grums for Malalandskilen on October 25, 1863.  He is shown on line 7 in this link in the left column.  Does anyone know what the ‘d.’ and ‘Sn’ mean around the word Grums?  My attempts to locate him in household visitations/baptism records in Grums have been unsuccessful.  His occupation involved floating logs, which may have been what took him away from home.  He was also described as a carpenter in the Flyttningslängder.  He married Brita Karlsdotter in November 1863 in Lit, Jämtland.  They had three daughters and one son, the youngest of whom was my great-grandmother.  She eventually emigrated to Minnesota. 

Anders has been my major brick wall for years.  Does anyone have any suggestions where I might look?  All sorts of documents that chronicle Anders’s life are on the Riksarkivet, but I just can’t find his birth family.  (There is an Anders Jönsson baptized in Grums around February 28, 1834, son of Jonas Larsson and Stina Andersdotter.  Research showed he was a different Anders who lived in Lofberga).  I went through the entire Household Visitation for Grums covering the year he left and supposedly moved to Malalandskilen and couldn’t find him anywhere.  Thanks so much for any search tips-just having a new place to look or a way to narrow down the location would be fantastic!

-K

Comments

This doesn't help to solve anything, but the 25 in that inflyttning record is the page number in the HFL that he is meant to go to. However, he's not listed there. On the next page of the inflyttning is the arrival of wife Brita in December. She goes to page 17 where Anders is also found.

I note that all records list his surname as Jonsson, not Jönsson.

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Yes, I read Jonsson, too. But, when searching one should probably be open for Jonsson-Jönsson-Jansson and possibly even Johansson.

What is crucial is to find an unmarried Anders J. with roughly the correct birth date, who went north from Värmland in 1863.

Answer 1

Hi there,

Grums was an annex in a set of parishes sometimes called a deanery ("Pastorat" in Swedish).  There are no less than five parishes in the same deanery, all of which would merit further investigation for likely candidates.  The parishes are Nor, Grums, Ed, Segerstad, and Borgvik. The principal parish was Nor, but it could easily be that Anders was born in any of the other associated parishes.

Searching through some of the volumes of births for these parishes yields the following candidates (note there may be further volumes to check - I've only done the obvious ones):

Anders - born 19 Oct 1834 in Nor parish, son of Jönas Andersson (an unusual spelling - it could be either Jonas or Jöns or the rather exceptional Jönas... There *does* appear to be an umlaut over the o...) and his wife Britta Nilsdotter at Mellemstorp (?), see: Nor (S) C:2 (1823-1860) image 35 (reference to AD image, may be different at Riksarkivet).

Anders Gustav - born 28 March 1834 in Eds parish, son of Johannes Andersson and Kjerstin Olsdotter at Ås, see Ed (S) C:4 (1820-1858) page 95

Anders - born 27 November 1834 in Segerstad parish, illegitimate son of the maid Maja Pettersdotter, see Segerstad (S) C:2 (1794-1861) page 183

Borgvik yielded no candidates.

If I were you, I would follow up on the above candidates to see if their continued existence would overlap with your Anders Jönsson.  I would also go through the volumes of births and christenings in more detail - I've only skimmed them here, and could easily have missed something.

Do let us know how you go! :)

Comments

Couldn't leave this alone. Have been looking around. The Anders in Nor died when he was a year old - household record: Nor AI:10 (1835-1841) p. 240

@Matt: I don't think his father was Jönas, I think whoever wrote the records was in the habit of dotting his Js - in the birth record of Anders the dot happened to turn out a bit exuberant.

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That's a much better explanation for the odd name!  Hahaha! *blushes*

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Just want to add that Anders Jonsson, born in Grums 14th of March 1835 is not your guy either. (I followed him until after he was supposed to marry Brita, so it's certain.) :)

(Birth record Grums (S) C:3 (1817-1854) Bild 86 / sid 161 (AID: v6580.b86.s161, NAD: SE/VA/13163))

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Basically all we know is that

1. People do not appear out of thin air, there's no such magic
2. There must be something wrong with the data for Anders' birth. It only takes one little detail wrong for a person to become extremely hard to trace - the problem is to figure out which one. (We don't like to think there are errors in every detail ;-)

Actually, one would like to think that he was born in Grums, and not in one of the other parishes in the pastorate, since Grums was an annexe and Nor the mother parish. When records do that annoying thing and only mention the pastorate, not the parish, it is usually the mother parish that is used.

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And one of the other examples,

"Anders Gustav - born 28 March 1834 in Eds parish, son of Johannes Andersson and Kjerstin Olsdotter at Ås"

died in 1836. (Ed (S) AI:11 (1836-1840) Bild 116 / sid 105 (AID: v10721.b116.s105, NAD: SE/VA/13090))

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When Anders Jonsson is newly married and is living in Stugun, his place of birth is "Vermland" and not Grums.

Stugun (Z) AI:8 (1861-1871) Bild 240 / sid 17 (AID: v115240.b240.s17, NAD: SE/ÖLA/11094)

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So maybe he just arrived from Grums?

That's what it says in the arrivals book, linked in the question

https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisning/A0016574_00010

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"People do not appear out of thin air, there's no such magic." Nope.  I disagree - I'm a believer!!  :D  I can give you two examples from my own research.  The first one was born without parents (but *maybe* he wasn't an immaculate conception...?) and the second one probably had his birth information given to him by the priest - I suspect the latter was a traveller.  If you run out of things to do let me know: I have no idea what else to do with these two.

To tie back to the actual question - it's also possible that Anders arrived and left Grums before the priest had a chance to conduct an annual household examination.  With that in mind, I found another candidate, which it also cannot be (sadly) - there's an Anders Jönsson b. 29/8 1832, who entered Grums on the 7 July 1863, but then got married, settled, and had kids - see Grums AI:19, p.274 and Grums B:4, 1863, no. 13.

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I'm thinking Anders falls into the same magic boat.  And Sweden is one of the best countries for documenting ancestry, because they've been so great at recording everything-I think my 2-g grandfather managed to disappear pretty well.  Thank you to everyone who's been commenting-I really appreciate the insights.  I've been looking at Anders's wife's family in the household visitations: from 1853-1863 she was living with her family in Lit, but unfortunately Anders isn't there.  I know he's *somewhere* in the volumes of records, and I'll probably find out his ancestry in a few decades-I can literally see myself reading through everything.  =)

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As for the thin air, yes, I should make a profile for the foundling who was baptized in Odensvi in 1708, at age 16. He was named Pehr according to the note hanging on a string around his neck when he was found - when he was baptized he made the choice to be called Pehr Adamsson. I just don't know what became of him later. And my ancestor, the gardener Petter Holm in Älvsbacka, born in Västergötland in 1733 certainly had parents - but I don't fancy looking through the birth books of 450 parishes. Nobody els seems to have done it, either.

As for Anders Jonsson arriving and leaving Grums before the household examination, I don't think that is how it worked so relatively late in time. By then events would have been entered in the household record ledger more or less as they happened. People had to present their papers when they came to stay in the parish, didn't they?

I browsed the household record for Grums 1856-1864 yesterday - and I didn't find him, either. The record looks well kept and it's fairly readable. People mostly moved between pages in the book or to neighbouring parishes. Someone moved to Väse hundred. A few moved to Norrland - so the further away, the vaguer the name of the destination.

Thinking of hundreds, that may be the explanation for Grums being used to cover all the parishes in the pastorate - the hundred was Grums (I just looked it up), while Nor was the mother parish of the pastorate.