so you schook your family tree and a swede fell out---now what?
here's a quick family tree research update to immediate family, our cousins found on ancestry, and our dear interested friends-
we've always known that my paternal grandparents were swedish. dad would mention the old swedes in philadelphia and talked about visiting oscar in florida.
about the swedish boys playing basketball against the italians on his childhood street in philadelphia, because everyone knew who was on which team.
we knew their american names: harry f and sophie williams. we knew he had changed his name from the swedish. so we knew we were borrowed williams with no relationship possible with any other williams we might meet. we're not english or welsh, we're the swedish williams.
we found his wife- sophie ekstrom pretty soon after starting the genealogy research, 2 months ago now.
after about 2 weeks working with the wrong swedish great grandmother-sophia, we found the right one-serafia. and met jab-a swedish american in texas, who set the record straight.
but great grandfather harry f williams, hereafter known as the ever elusive harry f, has eluded and painfully deceived us at every twist and turn.
while we found the german hedrichs, the irish philadelphian masons(henry j who fought for the yankees), the virginian saunders and pughs and broaches(confederates all), in the meanwhile harry f remained, unknown, unfound.
at this point eva-in sweden, and jab, 2 very competent, very experienced swedish genealogists(and very nice) have worked dozens of hours reading handwritten, not indexed, parish and household records looking for my/our ancestors. thank you, we would never have gotten anywhere without you.
it is so complex, so twisting, so many problems that i started a tree just for him http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/28241493/family?cfpid=12017921117 and his research.
a long note of what we know about him, attached, if you want to jump in, read this. any help appreciated. i'm rewriting it this week(encouraged by jab) trying to make it more readable this week.
so, this extraordinary scavenger hunt for harry f is potentially reaching a conclusion soon(in genealogical time, not our normal time), we have 1 known cousin-carl arvid kilstrom(but unfortunately not his parents yet, another false lead there), 2 potential cousin branches, where we know the parents:charles kilstrom, his sister teresa and hilda's husband johan karl kilstrom. we've verified what my dad said about swedish relations sending home for spouses, hilda and john for example.
it's been an amazing journey, you can read lots of it in the comments on either harry f's tree or my main one, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/26804244/family?cfpid=1923138889
with the advent of genetic testing, things change. we will be able to prove relationships with people in sweden through y chromosome homology. i'm I2a2 isles rs9786562 = C(everyone else known are T) paternal haplogrouping, so will be steve and his son and my sons, and grandson julian. and our swedish relations. so when they get tested and make their results public the connection via the rs9786562 = C mutation will pop out(if it didn't occur since harry f, it would be like him to be the origin!). so i bought an onsale(of course) ftdna kit to get more and different data on the y chromosome.
so, at this point, we might really be kihlstroms, or kilstroms, or kallstroms or kelstroms .......
and along the way, we've learned a lot about swedish military names, household examination records, crossed out names on almost unreadable parish records, comings and goings records, signing for your relatives at the philadelphia docks, the questions asked by immigration officers of our ancestors(are you crazy or lame, how much money do you have in your pockets, who paid for your ticket, for example), learned about history-the clearance of danes from skane for example, cuisine, about sweden's big TV contest for swedish americans. that a quarter of swedes left home for america, what a grass widow is.
see what you've missed *grin*
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
richard williams
epistemology in a nutshell!!!
The issue is illustrated in an anecdote about three baseball umpires who were arguing about their job. Each called balls and strikes; each was bragging as to who did the best job. Said one: “I call them as I see them-and no one can do better than that.” The second retorted, “That’s nothing: I call them as they are.” The third paused a moment, and finally added: “They ain’t nothing until I call them-and then that’s what they are.”
from: http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/comedy_and_philosophy/
we've always known that my paternal grandparents were swedish. dad would mention the old swedes in philadelphia and talked about visiting oscar in florida.
about the swedish boys playing basketball against the italians on his childhood street in philadelphia, because everyone knew who was on which team.
we knew their american names: harry f and sophie williams. we knew he had changed his name from the swedish. so we knew we were borrowed williams with no relationship possible with any other williams we might meet. we're not english or welsh, we're the swedish williams.
we found his wife- sophie ekstrom pretty soon after starting the genealogy research, 2 months ago now.
after about 2 weeks working with the wrong swedish great grandmother-sophia, we found the right one-serafia. and met jab-a swedish american in texas, who set the record straight.
but great grandfather harry f williams, hereafter known as the ever elusive harry f, has eluded and painfully deceived us at every twist and turn.
while we found the german hedrichs, the irish philadelphian masons(henry j who fought for the yankees), the virginian saunders and pughs and broaches(confederates all), in the meanwhile harry f remained, unknown, unfound.
at this point eva-in sweden, and jab, 2 very competent, very experienced swedish genealogists(and very nice) have worked dozens of hours reading handwritten, not indexed, parish and household records looking for my/our ancestors. thank you, we would never have gotten anywhere without you.
it is so complex, so twisting, so many problems that i started a tree just for him http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/28241493/family?cfpid=12017921117 and his research.
a long note of what we know about him, attached, if you want to jump in, read this. any help appreciated. i'm rewriting it this week(encouraged by jab) trying to make it more readable this week.
so, this extraordinary scavenger hunt for harry f is potentially reaching a conclusion soon(in genealogical time, not our normal time), we have 1 known cousin-carl arvid kilstrom(but unfortunately not his parents yet, another false lead there), 2 potential cousin branches, where we know the parents:charles kilstrom, his sister teresa and hilda's husband johan karl kilstrom. we've verified what my dad said about swedish relations sending home for spouses, hilda and john for example.
it's been an amazing journey, you can read lots of it in the comments on either harry f's tree or my main one, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/26804244/family?cfpid=1923138889
with the advent of genetic testing, things change. we will be able to prove relationships with people in sweden through y chromosome homology. i'm I2a2 isles rs9786562 = C(everyone else known are T) paternal haplogrouping, so will be steve and his son and my sons, and grandson julian. and our swedish relations. so when they get tested and make their results public the connection via the rs9786562 = C mutation will pop out(if it didn't occur since harry f, it would be like him to be the origin!). so i bought an onsale(of course) ftdna kit to get more and different data on the y chromosome.
so, at this point, we might really be kihlstroms, or kilstroms, or kallstroms or kelstroms .......
and along the way, we've learned a lot about swedish military names, household examination records, crossed out names on almost unreadable parish records, comings and goings records, signing for your relatives at the philadelphia docks, the questions asked by immigration officers of our ancestors(are you crazy or lame, how much money do you have in your pockets, who paid for your ticket, for example), learned about history-the clearance of danes from skane for example, cuisine, about sweden's big TV contest for swedish americans. that a quarter of swedes left home for america, what a grass widow is.
see what you've missed *grin*
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
richard williams
epistemology in a nutshell!!!
The issue is illustrated in an anecdote about three baseball umpires who were arguing about their job. Each called balls and strikes; each was bragging as to who did the best job. Said one: “I call them as I see them-and no one can do better than that.” The second retorted, “That’s nothing: I call them as they are.” The third paused a moment, and finally added: “They ain’t nothing until I call them-and then that’s what they are.”
from: http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/comedy_and_philosophy/