Swedish Second Great Grandparents

We are returning to our Swedish Ancestors and concentrating on Grandma Petzinger's Mother's Father and family.  The last blog was all about  Carolina Magnusson.  And as I mentioned there, her last name comes from her Dad - Magnus.  His full name was Magnus Gabrielsson (guess who his father was?).  He was born November 8, 1826 in Blekinge Sweden - southeast coastal town.  His father was a tenant farmer and he became a farm laborer in 1844 and 1845.  But on October 30, 1846 at the ripe old age of 20, he joined the Navy.  He had brown eyes, black hair, medium physique according to his papers.  Because Swedes carry so many of the same names, the Navy assigned an additional last name - often it was the same name of the person who served the farm or village previously.  And so Magnus Gabrielsson became Magnus Gabrielsson Lots.  Lots can be translated as Pilot.

Sweden at this time had a an unusual Navy - every large farm or small village sponsored a Navy Sailor, providing him with a home, a small piece of land, seed, a few animals, etc.  They served on ships from the Navy War Base in the nearby city of Karlscrona and were known as Boatsmen.

Magnus married Anna Martha (aka Marta) Mårtensdotter on December 26, 1850.  Anna Marta was born April 17, 1830 to Mårten Andersson and Maria Jonasdotter in Blekinge.  They had 11 children born between 1851 and 1875, with our great grandmother, Carolina the second youngest.  All but one survived through adulthood.  Their children were known as Gabrielsson (not Lots) and wives always kept their own last name. 

Magnus retired from the military as a Canon Commander November 9, 1886 and he died two years later.  Once he retired from the Navy, he lost his home and support, which may explain what happens with his youngest children after his death.

Most of the boys grew up to be tenant farmers - only one became a Boatman.  Carolina's sisters' lives resembled a daytime soap opera.  The oldest daughter, Ester married Sven Peter Svensson and she lost two children in infancy.  Then lost a third as a toddler and within a few days was on a ship to America, leaving her husband and sole surviving child in Sweden, never to return.  The last child died a year later from measles.  I have not found anything about her life in the States.

Her much younger sister, Karin had an out-of-wedlock son.  The father had been in America and when he returned, he acknowledged the child, and they married and lived with her parents.  They had another child, and then he left again for America.  While he was gone (I don't think he returned, but I can find no info on him in the States), Karin became involved with Sven Peter Svensson, her sister's husband whose wife had left him.  They had a child, Sven acknowledged being the father, but they never married - probably because they both were already married to missing spouses!

The third youngest daughter, Maria Sofie had an out of wedlock child, Jon Emil in 1887.  When he was three years old, she left for America without him.  She married Thomas C. Sorensen in Bennington, Vermont in 1891. 

She was followed to America by our great grandmother, Carolina, in 1891 and the youngest sister, Emelie in 1893.  They apparently ended up in Bennington Vermont as stated on Emelie's Boston passenger list showing that Carolina paid for her ticket and she was joining her sister Maria in Bennington.

Carolina married our great grandfather Louis Stuart (Johann Friedrich Ludvig Stuhr) in 1893 in Troy, New York.  I have yet to find how they met, but they settled for a a couple of years in Bennington before permanently moving to Bridgeport Connecticut in 1904.  Interestingly, their first and last children (Emil and Alma) were born in Bennington, but Grandma (Thora Sophie) was born in Troy.

Their widowed mother, Anna Marta lived until 1915 in Blekinge, Sweden, dying of frailty old age.  I do not know if she ever again saw her children who went to America or her American grandchildren. 

The next post will continue with Magnus' parents, Gabriel Petersson and Elin Måansdotter.

Our Swedish Great Grandparents

Grandma Petzinger's Ancestors

Dad frequently spoke about his Swedish grandmother – he used to
recite how she said 999,999 in Swedish, and it went something like
this:  ”hutey hue husen, hu hemlock, hue.”  When Lottie, my
exchange student from Sweden, heard it, she said she had no idea what
he was talking about.....Ahhh, the mystery of family lore. But, his
grandmother really was from Sweden, that much is true! 




Some background on Swedish naming conventions – called
patronymics.  The use of last names was unknown – a child was given
a first name and their last name was simply their father's first name
plus ”son” or ”dotter” (daughter).  




So Dad's grandmother's (our great grandmother) name was Carolina
(sometimes Anna Carolina) born to Magnus and Anna Martha.  So
Carolina's last name, taken from her Dad's first name was
Magnusdotter.  She was born October 12, 1872 in a small coastal
village in southwestern Sweden called Kristianopel, in the county of
Blekinge.  




In the late 1800's the patronymic naming convention was phasing
out, being replaced with conventional last names being carried to the
next generation.  When Carolina emigrated to the United States, she
dropped the ”dotter” which was becoming obsolete and used ”son”,
making her name Magnusson.  




Her father, Magnus died in 1889, and according to the church
outgoing records, she left her church July 31, 1891 and according to
the ship's passsenger manifest, she was 19 years old, unmarried,
working as a maid, and traveled without family to New York, arriving
August 24, 1891 via Liverpool, England. There were a few other young
girls from her hometown that were also in the church's outgoing
records around the same time period, so she may have had companion
travelers.  Her older married sister had emigrated in 1888 within
days of the death of one of her children.  She, too, surprisingly
traveled without family but I have yet to find a trace of her in
America.



Carolina apparently settled in the
Lansingburgh area of Troy, New York where, within a couple of years,
she married Louis Stuart (Johann Ludvig Fredrik Stuhr) on August 16,
1893.  They had three children, Emil W. (born 4 Mar 1894 in
Bennington, Vermont– yes only 8 months after the marriage, but
could have been premature), Thora Sophie (born 4 Mar 1896 in
Lansingburgh) and Alma L. (born 5 September 1898 in Bennington,
Vermont).  The family moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut in the early
1900's.



Louis Stuart died in 1935 in Bridgeport of bladder cancer, and
Carolina followed him a couple of years later in 1937, dying of
pneumonia.  They are buried in Lawncroft Cooperative Cemetery in
Fairfield, Connecticut.



I asked google to translate the English 999,999 into Swedish, it
gave this:  ”nio hundra nittio nio tusen.” Hmmmm, I can hear a
couple of words there that sorta kinda sounded like Dad's version -
”hutey hue husen, hu hemlock, hue.”!







Next post will be about our 2x great grandparents (parents of Anna
Carolina Magnusson), Magnus and Anna Martha.