SWEDISH ROOTS in three chapters

Harold Henderson 5 December 2001


CHAPTER I. FOR SURE

On the 9th of November, 1885, a 29-year-old printer from Jönköping
in south central Sweden embarked for America from the port of Göteborg.
August Philip Boring (1856-1936) went first to Minneapolis, but soon
settled in Chicago, where his wife's sister Hilma Stenberg had lived since
1881. August's wife Sanda Stenberg (1861-1918) and their two
daughters, three-year-old Ruth and one-year-old Hilma, followed him
across the Atlantic in 1886. Eventually they had six daughters, but as far
as we know only Ellen (1887-1920) ever married. She and Aleck
Henderson (1874-1957) had two children, Eleanor (1909-1984) and Ronald
(1914-).


A. FINDING AUGUST

If August brought any stories over from the old country, we haven't
heard them. The only information passed down in the family was a
blank. "Boring," we were told as children, was not his real last name; it
had been changed from something else when he lived in Sweden. We
still don't know why this was done, or when, or at whose initiative. It's
possible that August took (or was assigned) "Boring" as a "military
name" -- if he was in the military -- but we have never seen it mentioned
as a typical military name.

Only in June 2001 did we learn that his birth name was Andersson.
Here's how we were lucky enough to find that out:

August spent most of his life working as an editor and stenographer
for the Mission-Friend publishing company in Chicago, taking down
various preachers' sermons in Swedish. After his death the company
published a paperback booklet of sermons he'd transcribed, entitled -
Predikningar.- Otto Hogfeldt wrote a brief biographical preface to the
book. In it he said that August was born 29 December 1857, that he grew
up in Jönköping, that his father died when he was one year old, that he
was raised by his mother and older sister, and that he came to this
country in 1884. (Hogfeldt also said that August attended the "general
secondary school," worked in Hall's "well-known" print shop, and was
converted in 1876. These statements haven't helped us so far, but they
may yet.)

By the way, the records in this country agree on August's birth date
but differ on his birth year. His death certificate and Otto Hogfeldt both
give 29 December 1857. But the handwritten record in the Swedish
Covenant Church register in Chicago gives 29 December 1856. (See
Microfilm E208, "Inventory Covenant Churches -- America" at the
Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, Augustana College,
Rock Island IL.)

When Lois and I visited the Swenson Center in June, Jill Seaholm
taught us a lot in a hurry. We learned that Jönköping is pronounced
YUN-chuh-ping. We learned that it's the name for both the province and
its main city, and that Jönköping city is divided into two parishes, Sofia
and Kristina. We obtained the emigration records for Hilma, August,
Sanda, and the two children, establishing the dates of their emigrations
(in three separate parties!). And we picked up a handout that mentioned
a website for Jönköping province,
http://w1.361.telia.com/~u36110643/engindex.htm.

The Jönköping web site turned out to be a genealogical gold mine
for us. Some dedicated folks there have transcribed and put on line more
vital records than I have seen done in any other comparable jurisdiction.
Besides births, marriages, and deaths, the database gives addresses,
parents (for births), age (at death), occupation (sometimes), and cause of
death. These facts are systematically tabulated by parish; there are two
or three dozen parishes in Jönköping province, including the two in the
city itself. (They keep adding information to the site, so using it to
reason by elimination is tricky.)

Having picked up a few words of Swedish, we found we could
productively search this site. This fall Rick greatly expedited the process
by "spidering" the website -- downloading it into Mom's computer -- so
that we could search all parishes at once without going online. We took
the opportunity at Thanksgiving to re-evaluate everything we thought
we had found out there in the summer.

We searched births for "August Philip" -- an unusual combination of
names for that time and place -- and found that a baby of that name was
born in Jönköping's Kristina parish on 29 December 1856. Baby
August's parents were Anders Magnus Andersson and Lovisa Kristina
Svensson, who lived at Svenska Maden 35. (This address may be an
apartment house, judging from the number of people who seem to be
simultaneously occupying it.) Anders Magnus is identified as a
"tunnbindare," a cooper or barrel maker.

When we searched deaths for the same parish, we found an Anders
Magnus Andersson -- at the same address and with the same occupation
-- dying of "reumatism" on 16 July 1859.

Searching for additional births to the same couple, we found only Ida
Kristina Andersson, who was born about three years before August
Philip, on 15 October 1853. Anders and Lovisa were then living at 31
Svenska Maden in Kristina parish. Under marriages, the records show
Anders and Lovisa being married 7 October 1849 in Kristina parish. So
they'd been married for less than ten years when he died, leaving her
with a 5-year-old and a toddler. We haven't found any evidence that she
remarried.

So. Is August Philip Andersson, the son of Anders and Lovisa, the
same person as our ancestor August Philip Boring? He was born in the
same city, with the same given names, into a family with an older sister,
on exactly the right date in one of the possible years -- and his father
died when August was very young.

We can't be 100% sure. We could conceivably come across another
birth record in Jönköping for an August Philip of the same age with an
older sister and a father who died soon. But the odds against such a
coincidence seem very great. Given normal human memory slippage, the
evidence seems ample that Anders and Lovisa's son is also Ellen's
father, Ron and Eleanor's grandfather, Harold/Laura/Sarah/Lois/Rick's
great-grandfather, and Rachel/Robin/Josh/Sam/Peter/Elizabeth
Anne/Julia's great-great grandfather. So we proceeded.


B. FINDING AUGUST'S GRANDPARENTS

Anders Magnus Andersson is said to have been 35 years, 10
months, and 5 days old when he died. That would mean he was born 11
September 1823. When we searched for that birthdate, we found an
Anders Magnus being born in the parish of Bankeryd (about six miles
north of Jönköping city) to Jöns Andersson, a "dräng" (farmhand or
bachelor), and Sara Katrina Bogren.

Since the date is exactly right, there seems little room for doubt that
these are August's paternal grandparents. The database shows that
they were married in Bankeryd parish 23 November 1823 (when Sara's
middle name is transcribed as Katarina), more than two months *after*
Anders was born. The record is likely correct, as it lists Sara as
"betrothed" rather than the usual "maiden."

Jöns and Sara had four more children after Anders Magnus: Maria
Helena born 4 December 1825, Hedwig Sofia born 27 August 1829, Erik
Johan born 19 September 1832, and Johanna born 10 August 1835. The
first three children were born in Bankeryd, the last two in Sanseryd
(where their mother is listed as simply "Sara" without a middle name, but
is surely the same person as she is married to the same guy).

These children are our relatives. Their descendants, if any, in each
generation would be Ron's third cousins, my fourth cousins, and the
newest generation's fifth cousins. And at least one of them does seem
to have had children. We found an Erik Johan Andersson -- probably
but not certainly the one born to Anders and Sara in 1832 -- who married
Maria Katrina Nilsdotter 4 June 1859. Erik Johan and Maria had four
children, all in Kristina Parish: Johan Emil born 20 March 1862, Viktor
Reinhold born 14 January 1865, Erik Kristian born 28 December 1867, and
Karl Erik born 25 February 1870. When Erik Kristian was born, the family
was living at Svenska Maden 15, which I suppose can't be too far from
Svenska Maden 35, where his probable first cousin August Philip was
about to celebrate his eleventh birthday.

At this point Rick and I got smart and realized that when August's
grandmother Sara died she was probably called Sara Andersson. We
searched for a death under that name, and found only one. This person
died 29 September 1857, aged 64 years 5 months 4 days, of "kolera."

There was no particular reason to think it was our Sara, until we
noticed the address -- and our hair stood on end. She died at *Svenska
Maden 35,* the same place where her son and daughter-in-law and two
tiny grandchildren were living! The records show a steady stream of
deaths from "kolera" in the parish at that time. We wouldn't be here if
baby August (then less than a year old) hadn't survived the epidemic.

This is pretty much everything we've been able to learn for sure
about our Swedish ancestors so far. The problem is that the transcribed
Jönköping vital records provide only a bare minimum of information.
Unless you're working with an unusual name or a definite birthday, it is
very difficult to determine -- for instance -- which, if any, of the 13 Jöns
Anderssons born in Jönköping at about the right time is the one who
married Sara Bogren! (See below.) Reasoning by elimination is tricky,
since not every Jönköping vital record is listed on the site, and any
individual might have come "from away," as Sara may have. At the far
end of their lives, they may have left Jönköping for Stockholm or
America before dying.


CHAPTER II. PROBABLE AND POSSIBLE


A. NOT QUITE FINDING SARA BOGREN'S FAMILY

Sara's death date and age imply that she was born on 25 April 1793.
We thought we could find her back then, and thus learn her parents'
names, pushing our known Swedish roots back another generation and
deep into the eighteenth century. No such luck.

No possible person was listed as being born anywhere in Jönköping
province on that day, or the day before. How about the day after? A
Sara and two Katrinas were born on 26 April 1793, but none of their
fathers was named Bogren! This Sara's father was named Anders,
though.

This isn't much to go on, but there are three possibilities:

(1) It might be that this Sara is our Sara, and she changed her name
sometime before marrying Jöns Andersson in 1823. (Julia the elder
thought of this.) "Bo" means nest/home/inhabitant/furniture and "gren"
means branch/bough, so "Bogren" would be a formation similar to other
names invented in the nineteenth century ("Lindgren" = linden-branch).
But according to the account of Swedish naming practices at
http://www.algonet.se/~hogman/Naming%20practice_eng.htm, such
names often combined the name of a tree or topographical feature and
another natural object, and were taken by craftsmen. I'm not sure if
"Bogren" qualifies, and I have no idea whether Swedish mores would
have allowed a woman or a non-craftsman to do this as early as the 1820s.

(2) It might be that this Sara is our Sara, and she married a Bogren
and was widowed before she married Jöns Andersson at age 30 in 1823.
There's time for this to happen. But insofar as it can be checked it seems
implausible. Rick found no record of such a marriage in Jönköping
province, and Sara was not listed as a widow when she married Jöns.

(3) Or perhaps this Sara is not our Sara, and ours was born in a
parish whose records are not yet on line or in another province
altogether.

Without more detailed records we have no way of even making a
good guess.


B. PROBABLY FINDING AUGUST'S SISTER AND BROTHER-IN-
LAW

We did find an Ida Kristina Andersson marrying a Per Gustav
Andersson 30 December 1882 in Kristina parish. Per Gustav is described
as a "trädgårdsmäs" or gardener. If this is August's older sister, then
she would be 29 years old, and interestingly did not change her name as
August did. The place and time seem about right, but we can't be sure.

In May 1884, in his home parish of Ljungarum, Ida and Per had a son
Frans Oskar Leonard Persson, who died either at birth or six days later.
We found no other birth or death records for the family, and plan to look
for their names in the Chicago city directories for the late 1880s. If they
turn up living near August and Sanda Boring, that might help confirm
their identity, and it would be of great interest if they had any more
children.


C. POSSIBLY FINDING LOVISA SVENSSON'S FAMILY

The search for more information about Lovisa Kristina Svensson,
August's mother, proceeded on several assumptions.

Assumption #1: Since she is described as a "piga" (maid) when she
married August, she was not married before. Thus her last name
"Svensson" means that her father had the last name "Svensson."

Assumption #2: Since she had children in 1853 and 1856, she herself
was born no later than 1838 and no earlier than 1803, and most likely not
at the extreme ends of this range.

In Jönköping province records, we found only one Lovisa Kristina
born to a Svensson -- on 16 September 1822 in Kristina parish, to Anders
Svensson and Judit Svensdotter. But we also found a Lovisa, no middle
name given, born to a Svensson -- on 10 April 1826 in Kristina parish, to
Håkan Svensson and Maria Eriksdotter. Both birth dates are well within
our range, and the location is reasonable. Looks like August has too
many mothers!

How important is the omission of the middle name? We have no
idea. Neither child appears to have died soon after birth. In the absence
of some clearer connection, it's also possible that neither one of these is
our ancestor, but we have a microscopic preference for Anders and
Judit's child.

Working from the other end, we did locate several Lovisa
Anderssons who died in Jönköping province at ages that place their
births in plausible years. Unfortunately none of them quite fit -- they all
require additional assumptions. One candidate would have been born in
1823, but she is listed as a "piga" at death, implying that she never
married. Another candidate would have been born in 1824 and is listed
as a widow, but her name is given as Lovisa Andersson Kemp, requiring
a second marriage of which we have found no record. (These two
individuals are listed with ages at death given only in whole years, not
mentioning months and days, so we treated them as approximate ages,
close enough to correspond to the birth dates of the two candidates.)


D. POSSIBLY FINDING JÖNS ANDERSSON'S FAMILY

The search for additional information about Jöns Andersson --
Lovisa's father-in-law, August's paternal grandfather, Sara's husband --
was much more arduous and inconclusive. Since he had children
between 1823 and 1835, he was probably born between 1765 and 1808,
and probably died between 1835 and, say, 1898.

That's not much to go on, and I suppose we were lucky to find only
thirteen men in the Jönköping province records who met these criteria!
Two are slightly more promising than the rest.

One was born in Bankeryd parish to Anders Falgren and Ingrid
Svensdotter on 7 January 1798. He's promising because that's the
parish where Jöns and Sara married and had their first three children

The other one died in Kristina parish on 1 May 1861 at the age of 68
years 3 months 13 days. He's promising because that's the parish where
two of his grown children lived and where his wife Sara died. That age is
just one day off from when a child named Jöns was born in the parish of
Rogberga to Anders Eriksson and Sigrid Jonsdotter (18 or 19 January
1793). So we have likely found the lifespan of a Jöns Andersson all right,
but is he ours?


CHAPTER III. NEXT UP

We don't have to take ship for Sweden just yet, although it wouldn't
hurt a bit for some dedicated person with too much spare time to learn
Swedish! Many Swedish parishes had far more detailed records than are
recorded in the Jönköping website, and some are available on microfilm.
For instance, some ministers visited each family in their parish once a
year, enumerating the members of the household and how much of the
catechism children knew, etc. Also, about a quarter of the people left
inventories of their estates and lists of their heirs at death, which the
state took an interest in for tax purposes. (If this involved the most
prosperous quarter of the population, then I doubt that we'll find any of
our folks doing so!) There are a goodly number of Swedish ancestry
websites to be explored. In addition, we have a handful of letters August
wrote in Swedish in the 1920s and 1930s to his daughter Emy Lou (1893-
1976), and a few letters Sanda wrote in Swedish around 1916, which may
conceivably contain clues.

Two last reflections on what we know so far:

(1) It's a curious coincidence that August is not our only male
ancestor in this generation whose father died when he was very young.
Just a few years earlier in southeastern Illinois, Leonidas Thrall's father
Worthy died in January 1852, when Leonidas was one year old.

(2) If there's a gene for great reproductive success, this line of
ancestors seems to have lacked it. From what we know so far, it is
entirely possible that the 5 Henderson children and 7 grandchildren who
receive this e-mail are the ONLY descendants of Anders Magnus and
Lovisa Kristina. This is pretty untypical of the nineteenth century, in
either Sweden or America.

Anyway, there are promising places to look for additional ancestors,
and to learn more about the four definite ones -- Anders Magnus
Andersson, Lovisa Kristina Svensson, Jöns Andersson, and Sara
Katrina Bogren -- that we already have found. And we've just barely
started with Sanda Stenberg's people.

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