Surname Saturday: GUSTAFSDOTTER and Related Surnames

This family is my adoptive great-great-grandmother's line. I first saw the surname as GUSTAVSON, which would be a common Americanization/Anglicization of her Swedish surname, although the correct Swedish spelling would be GUSTAFSSON. My ancestor's proper surname was GUSTAFSDOTTER, because she was "Gustaf's daughter" and not his son. Patronyms (surnames based on the father's first name) were used in Sweden by all social classes (nobility often took traditional surnames) until 1901, when the Names Adoption Act was passed and patronyms were banned.


Stories and History:

Rather than list the direct paternal line of Ida Charlotta GUSTAFDOTTER from her earliest known ancestor down to the present as I do in most Surname Saturday posts, I am listing her complete ahnentafel as known, using my ahnentafel numbers. I use the letter "B" after each ahnentafel number to distinguish my adoptive family ahnentafel from my biological one.

Ahnentafel #1 - myself

Ahnentafel #2 - my father (living)

Ahnentafel #5 - Jane Marie YORK, a.k.a. Jeanne Marie HOLST (1924 - 2012)

Ahnentafel #10B - Alfred Henry HOLST (1882 - 1952) - read his AnceStory here

Ahnentafel #21B - Ida Charlotta GUSTAFSDOTTER (1861 - 1939) - Born in Hamneda, Sweden, Ida was one of eight children, and as a young adult immigrated with a number of her siblings to Hannover, Germany. There she met Johan Deidrich HOLST, whom she married on 6 Feb 1880. With their young son Alfred, they left Germany on the ship Lessing via the port of Hamburg, stopping at LaHavre, France, and arriving in New York City on 5 Jul 1883. Their destination was Western Michigan, where Johan's sister and brother-in-law, Anna and Claus BORCHERS lived. The HOLSTs first lived in Spring Lake Township, Ottawa County, Michigan, where their daughter Annie was born. Their next three children, Jennie, Mary, and Margaret (Maggie) were born in Crockery Township., Ottawa County, followed by their youngest son John's birth in Ravenna Township, Muskegon County in 1894. Another child died young. The family lived in Sullivan Township in Muskegon County in 1910 and 1920, but had returned to Ottawa County by 1930, living in Coopersville for the rest of their days.

Ahnentafel #42B - Gustaf NILSSON (1822 - 1869) - born in Vittaryd, Sweden; m. Martha Stina SVENSDOTTER by 1848; died in Hamneda, Sweden.

Ahnentafel #43B - Martha Stina SVENSDOTTER (b. 1826) - born in Hamneda. She and Gustaf had eight known children, several of which emigrated to Germany. It's possible Martha emigrated there as well after Gustaf's death, as I do not find her death listed in the Swedish parish records.

Ahnentafel #84B - Nils - Gustaf's father; no further information is known.

Ahnentafel #86B - Swen Bosson HURTIG (1794 - 1850) - Martha's father, born, married to Anna (1821) and died, all in Hamneda

Ahnentafel #87B - Anna JONASSON (1801 - 1885) - Martha's mother, also born and died in Hamndea. Had at least seven children.

Ahnentafel #172B - Bo MANSSON - Swen's father; no further information is known

Ahnentafel #173B - Marta Stina SVENSSON - Swen's mother; no further information is known

Ahnentafel #174B - Jonas - Anna's father; no further information is known

Ahnentafel #354B - Mans - Bo's father; no further information is known

Ahnentafel #356B - Sven - Marta's father; no further information is known


More About the GUSTAFSDOTTER and Related Families, plus useful resources:

1. Online database (I update this at least once a month): GUSTAFSDOTTER/GUSTAFSSON ancestors and relatives (no info on living persons available)

2. Some GUSTAFSDOTTER obituaries

3. Posts about GUSTAFSDOTTER ancestors and relatives on this blog

8. ArchivDigital - Swedish genealogy subscription site with digitized church records - free access available at many FamilySearch Centers (special free access this weekend, 25 and 26 August 2012)

9. Anna-Karin's Genealogy Blog - helpful information (in English) on researching Swedish families and records. Anna-Karin personally helped me with my GUSTAFSDOTTER research! She also has a terrific genealogical podcast (also in English), here.

The GUSTAFDOTTER Immigration Trail:

Vittaryd, Sweden > Hamneda, Sweden > Ottawa Co., MI > Muskegon Co., MI > Ottawa Co., MI > AK > Stevens Co., WA > Spokane Co., WA

Friday Findings: My Swedish Line, KLAP, MIDKIFF, DICKINSON, Free and Low-Cost Resources

On Sunday, I worked on my adoptive great-grandmother's (Ida Carlotta GUSTAFSDOTTER) Swedish line. Anna-Karin had done some lookups for me with her resources quite a while ago and using the information she found, I was able to then trace back another two generations of ancestors, along with many collateral relatives. My main source was the International Genealogical Index and the Vital Record Index on FamilySearch, and while I know that the IGI is not always very reliable, the records I found seemed to be consistent with other information I found, and precise in date and location. I also spent some time on Swedish database websites found on Cyndi's List of Swedish websites, but what little records I found that could possibly be my family's required paying subscriptions.

Received an email from a KLAP descendant. My great-grandfather HOEKSTRA's older sister, Grace, married Adrian KLAP, and the individual who contacted me states that Adrian's uncle married his great-grandfather's sister. That particular line immigrated to Australia in 1950. I will add the info to my database, in case I come in contact with a descendant of Aunt Grace.

Received an email from a possible MIDKIFF descendant, as well as from a woman researching the 44th Indiana Infantry who has info to share regarding my ancestor, Ezra DICKINSON.

An amazing array of free and low-cost resources continue to be listed on my discussion forum at GenealogyWise. I have found some wonderful sites and gotten some ideas for offline resources, too, and I'm sure you'll appreciate them as well. Check them out!

Friday Findings: GenLine, CRAPSEY Burials, Cousins, and SNOOK Graves

Due to the Blogger debacle this week, I was not able to post my Friday Findings in a timely manner. Here's a rundown of my research results for the week of July 26 - August 1, 2008:

More on Many Marriages
While entering the marriage records of my husband's granduncle, Lee Joseph "Mick" MARTIN, I realized that the witnesses for his third marriage, to Martha Isabell (JONES) DVORAK, were his daughter from his first marriage and her husband. Hmm... It made me wonder if his first wife had died by then (I'm not sure how their marriage ended; by divorce or by her death?). I couldn't find any death information for her, but I did find Isabell, as she was called, on the SSDI.

Swedish Parish Records
Also following up on last week's findings, I went to my local Family History Center to use their free subscription to GenLine, the Swedish parish records database, to find and verify my great-great-grandmother's birth (Ida Charlotte (GUSTAVSON) HOLST). I had never used it before, so it took some time. Fortunately, it has a nice tutorial, available both in English and Swedish. It is necessary to know the name of the parish to do a search. The records appear in digital image format, not unlike looking at a roll of microfilm. They are not indexed by name in any way, so it takes some searching. All I had for Ida's birthplace was Hamnada, Sweden. I had no idea where this location was, and used both Wikipedia and the FamilySearch Library Catalog to find it, without any success. I had a feeling I was spelling it incorrectly. I then did a Google search and found a mention in someone's online family tree of a "Hamnada-Småland, Krnberg". I went back to Wikipedia to look at the political structure of Sweden. Småland is one of 25 provinces (landskapen) of Sweden and has no political structure as of 1634. It is a cultural, geographical and historical subdivision. Kronoberg is a county (län), a political subdivision, that lies in what is a part of Småland. I still could not find Hamnada or a a similiar name in any of the lists of municipalities (similar to American townships), villages, or cities of Sweden.

I went back to GenLine, and looking up Kronoberg County records, I noticed that Hamneda was one of the parishes. Bingo! They had birth and christening records up through 1861 (I don't recall the beginning year), so I went to take a look. In 1861 alone, there were NINE Ida Charlottas (no Charlottes) born in Hamneda parish! Only one had a surname close to GUSTAVSON, and that was a Ida Charlotta GUSTAFSON born, it appears on 29 December 1861 and baptized 31 December 1861. I say "appears", because I am not certain of what the dates stand for. There are three numbers and a month before each record. The first number is the record number, as they are all in sequence from 1 until the last record. Then comes the month abbreviation, which is very similar to our English month abbreviations. Then two numbers follow. The first number is always lower than the second number, and none of the numbers go beyond 31, so my assumption is that the first one is the birth date and the second one is the christening date. The words "Births and Baptisms" appear at the the top of each of these pages (in Swedish, of course), adding credence to my theory. I used FamilySearch's online Swedish Genealogical Word List to figure out the words.

My Ida Charlotte GUSTAVSON was born 28 October 1861, but I need to find my source of information for that. Her 1900 U. S. Federal Census enumeration does have October 1861 as a birth date. I ran out of time to double check 1860 records, and there are none available at GenLine for 1862. I will need to search other nearby parish records, too, I think. I also did not have time to figure out how to save or print the image with the birth date of the Ida Charlotta GUSTAFSON I found. This was an interesting first foray into Swedish records, and I felt I learned quite a bit.

CRAPSEY Burials
I've been trying to find a death date for my 4th-great-grandmother, Lura Ann (JACKSON) PECK CRAPSEY. I know she was deceased by 1900, when my step-ancestor, the Rev. John CRAPSEY, Jr. was listed as a widower in the Federal Census for that year. She was alive as late as 1891, when her husband filed an application for a pension based on his deceased son's military service. They were living St. Paul, Ramsey Co., Minnesota. Attempts to have a volunteer at RAOGK look up her death records did not work out. I then came across John's obituary stating he was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery. There is a Forest Lawn Memorial Parks and Mortuaries in Ramsey County, and I contacted them to see if I could find burial information (and thus a death date) for the Crapseys. I received an immediate response that there was no record of either one in their records. I need to follow up with wording from John's obituary to make sure that the Forest Lawn Cemetery he was buried in is the same as what Park and Mortuaries company now manages, when their records begin, and if they have record of John and Lura's children being buried there (it's possible, if their children are buried there, that John and Lura are buried without markers).

Cousins
A distant LEWIS cousin of mine, Bob Stefanich, contacted me to tell me about another cousin of ours (related more closely to me than Bob is) and that the LEWIS family reunion is occurring today in Fruitport, Muskegon Co., Michigan (wish I could be there)! I've contacted Jim with the hope that I can get more information on the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of my 2nd-great-grandparents, George Emmett LEWIS and Mary WILKINSON.

Also, a McARTHUR cousin contacted me. She lives in Michigan and is able to visit the ancestral cemeteries. She promised to take some tombstone photos of some of our mutual ancestors...so exciting!

SNOOK Graves
Speaking of ancestral graves, I heard from a Find A Grave photo volunteer--Catherine Bryon--who photographed the graves of my husband's 3rd-great-grandfather, Reuben Wohlford SNOOK, and his second wife, Elizabeth NEARHOOD, at the Forsyth Cemetery in Rosebud Co., Montana. Click on the links to view the photographs. Thanks, Catherine!

Muskegon County, Michigan Family Histories Wanted

DearMYRTLE highlighted an article in today's Muskegon Chronicle which encourages those of us with Muskegon County, Michigan roots to share our family stories for the publication of a county history being created by the Muskegon County Genealogical Society.

With ten ancestral--and dozens more collateral--surnames of my family tree taking residence in Muskegon County from at least 1879 to the present, I could submit a ton of information! However, only one family history of no more than 400 words and one photo are allowed free entry into the book. There's no information on the costs involved if you would like to submit more than one family history. Let's see, I could do the following groupings and submit five family histories (if they allow this): HOLST/GUSTAVSON/CONCIDINE; ROBBINS/KIMBALL; LEWIS/VREELAND; HOEKSTRA; and WILKINSON/SAYERS. Wonder how much that'll cost me?

I'm off to e-mail the genealogy society...!