GENESBYJOHN.INFO
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INTRODUCTION
ABRAHAMSON FAMILY HISTORY
If you wish to dive in right away please continue to the next page or click on the index link above or the following links. The index is on three pages A to Joh - Jon to Pena - Pers to W.
General Stuff and Nuts & Bolts
This genealogy is in a formatt called Register style and was originally used by The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. This publication is put out by the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. The oldest or earliest ancestor receives the number one. All of his children get a Roman numeral according to the order of their birth. Any of his children who have children are given another number that is to the left of the Roman numeral. This means that their is more information about this person in the next generation and it would list their spouse and children. After the first generation, the first name of that person's father, grandfather, etc. will be in parentheses. In front of the name will be the number of that person in this genealogy. A superscript number is after the name. This will indicate the generation of that person as counted from the original ancestor. This method may seem difficult to follow at first but it is really very simple and will become easier with a little practice. There are other variations on this format but they are basically the same.
I have tried to add some background information on the people. Something to make the people come alive rather than a dull monotonous list of people, dates and places. At this time there is not nearly enough of these personal stories and biographies but I hope to add more in the future. Janet Pinnerud Novak was kind enough to let me use a copy of her article "Thoughts From A Country Gal." She had interviewed her mother about her early life and had added some of her own memories to it. This kind of material adds greatly to this genealogy and all of our family histories. If you wish to share them with us please send them to me. Any additional information will be welcomed and may lead to new additions to this genealogy. In its present state some of the text is just notes taken from obituaries or parish records and censuses and is in a rough form. Other parts are personal stories and information from interviews and is in a more finished form. Some of the text is written in a more formal manner and others are more personal. Mostly this is due to the type of information available on that person. I also am constantly going over the material and making additions or corrections.
The internet has become a valuable source of information and publication. Genealogical groups, societies, individuals, state and national archives of a number of different countries have transcribed many thousands of documents and books and posted them on their web sites. Your are now able to search census, immigration, land, parish records from Norway and Sweden from the comfort of your own home. The Family History Library has the compete U.S. 1880 Census along with the 1881 British and Canadian Census available on line. There is a project at rootsweb to transcribe all of the U.S. Census material and put it on line. Some states have limited birth, death and marriage records or indexes available on line. Depending on what U.S. county your are researching some of them have all their historical and genealogical records or indexes are available. More and more is being transcribed and posted everyday. There is no limit to what might come of this for future research.
Concerning the dates. They are as found in the parish records except as follows. Up to about 1720 the parish records listed events, baptisms, marriages and deaths, using the Church calendar. Examples of these dates would be The Second Sunday After Epiphany, Rogate Sunday, Judica Sunday, etc. These dates were converted to the secular calendar dates using the book FEAST DAY CALENDAR FOR DENMARK, NORWAY, SWEDEN, FINLAND AND PROTESTANT GERMANY, by Bukke and Thomsen. The biggest problem with dates in general is that one can have three documents and not one will agree with the next on a birth or death date or even where a person was buried. Obituaries, death certificates and grave stones commonly disagree on dates. Dates or ages listed in census material is also problematical and can vary by a few years from record to record..
I wish to thank all of the people who have made this effort possible. The many relatives who gave of their time and most importantly their information. Especially to Gertrud Reitz, without her help the entire Swedish side of the family would not have been found. She has sent me charts tracing some ancestors back to the 1300's. These were done by Tor Flensmarck of Vä, Kristianstad, Sweden. He is interested in people of the middle ages and has traced numerous people of that time period to their modern day descendants. They are members of the Kristianstadbygdens Släktforskarförening. Loosely translated this is the Kristianstad Genealogical Society. Their publication is the C4-HÄRADSBLADET. This organization covers the area that many of our ancestors lived in. A year book is also published for the district. This is called Gärds Härads Hembygdsförening Årsbok. This contains many photographs and interesting stories of an historical or genealogical nature. It is in Swedish but much can be understood with the help of a good Swedish-American dictionary.
Many hours were spent hunched over a microfilm reader at the Family History Library of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of the Latter Day Saints, Hales Corners, Wisconsin branch. The Mormons have microfilmed all of the available census, parish, court, and probate records for Sweden and many other countries. Without this valuable resource this genealogy would never have been written or at least never have been this complete.
Origin of the name Abrahamson or Abrahamsson
The name "Abrahamson" or rather "Abrahamsson" originated in Elna Abrahamsdotter's branch of the family. The name means literally Abraham's son or son of Abraham. Elna married Sone Gregersson (#5) and it was only by accident that it became the permanent surname of the family or rather the branch of the family that came to the United States. Having permanent surnames for people started to take place in Sweden in the 1860's when they started to discard the patronymic naming system. Abraham Larsson's children were in this transitional period and generally kept the surname "Abrahamsson." All of the Scandinavian countries used this system also the Dutch and others. Norway stopped the practice about 1900 but Iceland still uses it. Abrahamson is not a common name in the United States but if you look in a Stockholm telephone book you can find many pages of them. Patronymic only means that the child takes the father's first name as his last name and adds son onto it. John son of Peter becomes John Peterson and William son of John becomes William Johnson. Before this women had kepted their maiden mames after marriage and started to take on their husbands names.
Naming practices in Sweden and other patronymic countries were a little more complicated than this but a simplified view for now will be sufficent. As always exceptions ans special circumstances will be found to any rules. In fact there were no rules as to what surnnames you had to take on. You could end up with three brothers having three different surnames. Even discarding a surname and taking on another one at will or for a specific reason. In Norway many people took on the name of the farm they were living on as their surname and changing it when they moved to a different farm. You can imagine researching this can be a fustrating experience.
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