öregrund stories
Of course this was going to be one of the most exciting bits of the trip! Walking the same streets, even if we did not know exactly where, was a promise that one of the Uppsala archivists had held out for us - "just imagine it when you get there" he said to me. "You'll find it". How true that became.
SUNDAY 15th September 2013
We have two rooms in Uddens, a B&B on the west-facing point of an east-facing coastline. In an old captain's house (above right, the yellow one) that had been in their family for four generations, Peder and Ann deliver a true smörgasbord breakfast - herring, ham, cheese, homemade bread and yogurt, berries, salad, eggs, smoothies 'eyeopeners' of their own fruit, apples - Peder insists on cooking us bacon too. They say we can make evening meals if we want to, as the B&B half of the house has a kitchen and it is just us there at the moment. A stunning tiled stove is made up every evening, spreading warmth all night, there is free wifi, what else could we ask for...?
Within half-an-hour of us arriving and having got the reason we were in Öregrund off-season out of us, Peder comes back with an 1814 map of the town with numbered blocks of houses and a list of who lived in them ... Anton Söderman among them!
MONDAY
The next day Peder introduces us to the librarian, Anna-Lena. She says "Oh, Söderman, yes, we have got a 6 volume history of the family here..." and brings us a typewritten set of family information written (in Swedish) by Anita Söderman, who lives a little way out of town. Anna-Lena immediately rang her, and Anita said "Oh I am going back to Stockholm later, but I could spare you an hour..." Peder takes us there - and by now he is hooked too!
Anita's house is large, stuffed with furniture, photos, books, knick-knacks, and lots of documents. She has been chronicling the history of her aunt, a sculptor and artist called Ulla-Brita, and her forbears. But it's the first book, about the old days, that we really want to see, and it is hard to decifer what is going on according to Anita's account. Or do the archives and records give contradictory information? Anita introduces a man called Thuffin, or Thuffe, and his descendants. [In subsequent correspondence she reveals that she is often 'visited' by Thuffe, and has revealing conversations with him...]
Anita's branch is the Försmark gentry, and she is especially concerned with her grandfather JP Söderman. On hearing where our tree branch lies, she does, however recognise the lineage and she has an abiding question "what happened to Anders and Anton, the twins?"
We now have a copy of the main information pages - I try to make a family tree out of it... so was Thuffe married to Margaret or to Anna-Greta? Did he have Anders, Anton and Johan with M or with A-G? When was this? How many Anders, Johans and Erics are there? Chris and I scan the photos in the room, to see what facial resemblances there might be. Anita is convinced we are related "somehow" (it's all in the bridge of the nose, apparently) and has been generous with her time and writings. We will go back, she says we were 'guided' to her. We agree we were...
Anna-Lena has contacted Anders Lindström, who runs the heritage museum, and he will be back in town on Friday, to meet us and take us round, as it's closed. Peder has contacted his old friend Björn who is a ships history expert, and he is coming for coffee Friday afternoon, to see what he knows about a mariner called Anton Söderman. Anders Lindström is Björn Lindström's brother... he hadn't realised he was back in town.
It is TUESDAY, and we all go to Försmark to see the bruk, a whole town built just for the iron workers and their families, like UK's Port Sunlight or Bourneville. I am fascinated by the house bricks made out of slag - what a fantastic way to use up the waste, what we Welsh could only pile into lethal heaps. It rains a bit, but we find the restaurant serves wonderfully fragrant fried fish with dill sauce for lunch, only 90 krona (£9)... we are served minutes before a charabanc-load of Swedish pensioners arrive.
We had already found out through a Swedish family history website that Öregrund's Family History Group is having its meeting that evening at the Library. So we mention it to Anna-Lena who says, yes, come along! When we get there, she has told them we want help to find our great grandfather. They go to it with a will, so we have gatecrashed their meeting somewhat, but - they are learning to use the SVAR archives database online, and so they have subscriptions.. they take us as a case study, put our information in, and lo... out pops a load of Antons from Gamla Karleby Sjömanshus records. They are ecstatic! It works! We are more than ecstatic... we are convinced!
Anna-Lena explains that the Swedish sailors in GK stem from when Finland was part of the Swedish territory, and it was a port just on the opposite side of the Baltic sea, from where ships brought the timber products that formed a large part of the country's trade with the world, and there was constant movement between the communities.
I think it rained on WEDNESDAY. Up to now we have had gorgeous weather, both in Uppsala and Öregrund, "unseasonal" they say. Michael and Chris continue to plunder the local history section of the library, and I subscribe to SVAR, the national archives which have some digital records online. The Öregrund family history group said the Finnish database is as easy to use as the Swedish one, so I search for it, log on, and it is easier! It's also free...
I pull stuff from the two archives' databases, and embellish the family tree on paper. I am still at it in bed at gone midnight. I find the entry for Anton's birth, in Gamla Karleby on 23rd October 1833. Also his father's marriage to Brita Catharina, and the birth of several siblings. I wake the house up!
THURSDAY Chris and Gail take a bit of time off from this frenzy, go off to Gävle, and a few more of the bruk towns. When they get back we watch a cloudy sunset then eat greek kebabs in the second of the three restaurants that are still open. Barça are on the telly, beating another poor team hands down. We have a branch of the tree that goes back to Maria Johansdottir, married to Michel Thomasson Kauko in 1691, in the old Swedish Kingdom. All is right with the world.
FRIDAY Anders Lindström takes us on our private tour of the stunning little museum, including the maritime section, and recounts the town's history. We pore over sea maps, discuss the social life of the 18th and 19th centuries, and eventually come away with another town map, from 1905, with the 'new numbering' of the blocks of houses. We had already realised that the Söderman's block had long been pulled down, and was now the Systembolaget (the state-run alcohol shop). We had gone in to buy wine, and got the (short version of) A Visitor's Guide to Swedish Drinking Laws from the shopkeeper ... only to tell him that he was working in what had been our ancestor's living room! On hearing this story, Anders delves into a cupboard and emerges with the bill of sale for the house in 1823 ... Enka (widow) Eva Maria Söderman and her son Petter Anders Cederholm (from her first marriage) had sold it to a police inspector.
Armed with all of this new knowledge, of course, we then meet Björn. He has been looking in the Sjömanshus records and is clear that all we have found is correct, and relevant, and rooted in our family. His knowledge of the global and maritime history of the Baltic is immense. He remembers German iron ships inching their way past the Öregrund harbour when he was a little boy in about 1943, as the main channel between Gräso and Åland had been mined to try to prevent the Germans getting their supplies (Winston Churchill's idea I think). This was when he came up with his opinion that Anton took on his Swedish nationality to escape imprisonment for being born in Finland.
On seeing our first attempts at a Tree, he also thought we might be related to each other, as "ummm, yes, there was a Norman back in our family too..." making reference to Eva Maria's maiden name. Chris and I look at Björn's face, catch each other's eye and mouth "Dad!".
It is our last night in Öregrund and the sunset comes up trumps! Our friend Jeff from Worthing (makes nyckelharpas... don't ask!) had said that the summer sunset from this Uddens point is spectacular. We see it. We photograph it. We congratulate ourselves for having had a superb time...
Oh wow, what a week...
We have a tree with several branches... and we have promised to return next year
SUNDAY 15th September 2013
We have two rooms in Uddens, a B&B on the west-facing point of an east-facing coastline. In an old captain's house (above right, the yellow one) that had been in their family for four generations, Peder and Ann deliver a true smörgasbord breakfast - herring, ham, cheese, homemade bread and yogurt, berries, salad, eggs, smoothies 'eyeopeners' of their own fruit, apples - Peder insists on cooking us bacon too. They say we can make evening meals if we want to, as the B&B half of the house has a kitchen and it is just us there at the moment. A stunning tiled stove is made up every evening, spreading warmth all night, there is free wifi, what else could we ask for...?
Within half-an-hour of us arriving and having got the reason we were in Öregrund off-season out of us, Peder comes back with an 1814 map of the town with numbered blocks of houses and a list of who lived in them ... Anton Söderman among them!
MONDAY
The next day Peder introduces us to the librarian, Anna-Lena. She says "Oh, Söderman, yes, we have got a 6 volume history of the family here..." and brings us a typewritten set of family information written (in Swedish) by Anita Söderman, who lives a little way out of town. Anna-Lena immediately rang her, and Anita said "Oh I am going back to Stockholm later, but I could spare you an hour..." Peder takes us there - and by now he is hooked too!
Anita's house is large, stuffed with furniture, photos, books, knick-knacks, and lots of documents. She has been chronicling the history of her aunt, a sculptor and artist called Ulla-Brita, and her forbears. But it's the first book, about the old days, that we really want to see, and it is hard to decifer what is going on according to Anita's account. Or do the archives and records give contradictory information? Anita introduces a man called Thuffin, or Thuffe, and his descendants. [In subsequent correspondence she reveals that she is often 'visited' by Thuffe, and has revealing conversations with him...]
Anita's branch is the Försmark gentry, and she is especially concerned with her grandfather JP Söderman. On hearing where our tree branch lies, she does, however recognise the lineage and she has an abiding question "what happened to Anders and Anton, the twins?"
We now have a copy of the main information pages - I try to make a family tree out of it... so was Thuffe married to Margaret or to Anna-Greta? Did he have Anders, Anton and Johan with M or with A-G? When was this? How many Anders, Johans and Erics are there? Chris and I scan the photos in the room, to see what facial resemblances there might be. Anita is convinced we are related "somehow" (it's all in the bridge of the nose, apparently) and has been generous with her time and writings. We will go back, she says we were 'guided' to her. We agree we were...
Anna-Lena has contacted Anders Lindström, who runs the heritage museum, and he will be back in town on Friday, to meet us and take us round, as it's closed. Peder has contacted his old friend Björn who is a ships history expert, and he is coming for coffee Friday afternoon, to see what he knows about a mariner called Anton Söderman. Anders Lindström is Björn Lindström's brother... he hadn't realised he was back in town.
It is TUESDAY, and we all go to Försmark to see the bruk, a whole town built just for the iron workers and their families, like UK's Port Sunlight or Bourneville. I am fascinated by the house bricks made out of slag - what a fantastic way to use up the waste, what we Welsh could only pile into lethal heaps. It rains a bit, but we find the restaurant serves wonderfully fragrant fried fish with dill sauce for lunch, only 90 krona (£9)... we are served minutes before a charabanc-load of Swedish pensioners arrive.
We had already found out through a Swedish family history website that Öregrund's Family History Group is having its meeting that evening at the Library. So we mention it to Anna-Lena who says, yes, come along! When we get there, she has told them we want help to find our great grandfather. They go to it with a will, so we have gatecrashed their meeting somewhat, but - they are learning to use the SVAR archives database online, and so they have subscriptions.. they take us as a case study, put our information in, and lo... out pops a load of Antons from Gamla Karleby Sjömanshus records. They are ecstatic! It works! We are more than ecstatic... we are convinced!
Anna-Lena explains that the Swedish sailors in GK stem from when Finland was part of the Swedish territory, and it was a port just on the opposite side of the Baltic sea, from where ships brought the timber products that formed a large part of the country's trade with the world, and there was constant movement between the communities.
I think it rained on WEDNESDAY. Up to now we have had gorgeous weather, both in Uppsala and Öregrund, "unseasonal" they say. Michael and Chris continue to plunder the local history section of the library, and I subscribe to SVAR, the national archives which have some digital records online. The Öregrund family history group said the Finnish database is as easy to use as the Swedish one, so I search for it, log on, and it is easier! It's also free...
I pull stuff from the two archives' databases, and embellish the family tree on paper. I am still at it in bed at gone midnight. I find the entry for Anton's birth, in Gamla Karleby on 23rd October 1833. Also his father's marriage to Brita Catharina, and the birth of several siblings. I wake the house up!
THURSDAY Chris and Gail take a bit of time off from this frenzy, go off to Gävle, and a few more of the bruk towns. When they get back we watch a cloudy sunset then eat greek kebabs in the second of the three restaurants that are still open. Barça are on the telly, beating another poor team hands down. We have a branch of the tree that goes back to Maria Johansdottir, married to Michel Thomasson Kauko in 1691, in the old Swedish Kingdom. All is right with the world.
FRIDAY Anders Lindström takes us on our private tour of the stunning little museum, including the maritime section, and recounts the town's history. We pore over sea maps, discuss the social life of the 18th and 19th centuries, and eventually come away with another town map, from 1905, with the 'new numbering' of the blocks of houses. We had already realised that the Söderman's block had long been pulled down, and was now the Systembolaget (the state-run alcohol shop). We had gone in to buy wine, and got the (short version of) A Visitor's Guide to Swedish Drinking Laws from the shopkeeper ... only to tell him that he was working in what had been our ancestor's living room! On hearing this story, Anders delves into a cupboard and emerges with the bill of sale for the house in 1823 ... Enka (widow) Eva Maria Söderman and her son Petter Anders Cederholm (from her first marriage) had sold it to a police inspector.
Armed with all of this new knowledge, of course, we then meet Björn. He has been looking in the Sjömanshus records and is clear that all we have found is correct, and relevant, and rooted in our family. His knowledge of the global and maritime history of the Baltic is immense. He remembers German iron ships inching their way past the Öregrund harbour when he was a little boy in about 1943, as the main channel between Gräso and Åland had been mined to try to prevent the Germans getting their supplies (Winston Churchill's idea I think). This was when he came up with his opinion that Anton took on his Swedish nationality to escape imprisonment for being born in Finland.
On seeing our first attempts at a Tree, he also thought we might be related to each other, as "ummm, yes, there was a Norman back in our family too..." making reference to Eva Maria's maiden name. Chris and I look at Björn's face, catch each other's eye and mouth "Dad!".
It is our last night in Öregrund and the sunset comes up trumps! Our friend Jeff from Worthing (makes nyckelharpas... don't ask!) had said that the summer sunset from this Uddens point is spectacular. We see it. We photograph it. We congratulate ourselves for having had a superb time...
Oh wow, what a week...
We have a tree with several branches... and we have promised to return next year