what happened next..
9th September 2013
We arrive in Uppsala.
We are staying in the student quarter, in a little stugan quite near the Regional Archives, and every day we go through the gorgeous Botanical Gardens to get there. We start researching Söderman, knowing that my great-grandfather used the surname Charles Antony Sederman in Britain, possibly since he came there in 1854. We still don't know why, but we speculate that "it sounds like that", and maybe he was Carl Anton.
We can use the archives for free, and we find three possibilities: Carl August Stack who was born in Uppsala on the right date, Carl Anton Sundström who was born in Öregrund but not the right date, but who lived in a Söderman household, and an outside chance, Carl Anton Ahlborn, as he was also born in 1833, in a nearby town and into a mariner's family. I send a Who Do You Think You Are? message to the cousins explaining this, and am urged to "stick with Söderman"! One of the entries Michael had found in the SVAR database on their free weekend is a birth and christening record from 1835 of a child whose godfather appears to be Captain Anton Söderman, from Finland... Derek recalls there might have been talk of a "Finnish connection" from his grandfather.
We decide to go with Anton, as "our" Antony used only this one name on his early mariner's paperwork. We amass a lot of detail about various family groupings, including several Anton Södermans, from Öregrund. We are still missing the elusive birth date of 23 October 1833, and speculate about all sorts of things. We are quite hopeful! We have found our way around the archives, some of the Swedish, we know what means what, and I can even say "husförhörslängd" (household records) properly! We have got into the Sjömanshus records (Seamen's Union), to find 130 Söderman entries for Gamla Karleby, as well as Gävle, Hundviksvall, ... many are A. or And. and about three possible Antons. I realise, of course, there they are - father (1800s), son (1830s) and might that be a grandson (1850s)? Where is Gamla Karleby - why, it is a Swedish sailors community in Finland!
We decide we like Uppsala, having cracked how to get round the city on the cheap, and spend a lot of time in Carl Linnaeus' gardens, twice visiting Gamla Uppsala, the ancient mounded capital of Uppland (Link is to Wikip, as museum link tells you nothing in English). We get given heritage apples from her family's trees by Barbro in a pop-up farmers market, and have permaculture-conversations about brining gherkins with the cucumber man from Odlarna tradgårdsföreng. We take trains to Gävle (to see the Joe Hill museum, and also in the wild goose chase period), and dance the Shottis and Polska to a massed band of nyckelharpas at the Eric Sahlström Institute at Tobo. The process of having to buy wine in the State Systembolaget Off Licence is a bit weird though... (more like On Licence...)
My brother and his wife fly in, we show them round Uppsala and see the things that got left out because we had had our heads down! It's their wedding anniversary, and we toast them and our new grandson/great-nephew Freddie, and participate in the KulturNatten, a mad day and night of street theatre, music, food, and drink of course.
Sunday we move on to Öregrund...
We arrive in Uppsala.
We are staying in the student quarter, in a little stugan quite near the Regional Archives, and every day we go through the gorgeous Botanical Gardens to get there. We start researching Söderman, knowing that my great-grandfather used the surname Charles Antony Sederman in Britain, possibly since he came there in 1854. We still don't know why, but we speculate that "it sounds like that", and maybe he was Carl Anton.
We can use the archives for free, and we find three possibilities: Carl August Stack who was born in Uppsala on the right date, Carl Anton Sundström who was born in Öregrund but not the right date, but who lived in a Söderman household, and an outside chance, Carl Anton Ahlborn, as he was also born in 1833, in a nearby town and into a mariner's family. I send a Who Do You Think You Are? message to the cousins explaining this, and am urged to "stick with Söderman"! One of the entries Michael had found in the SVAR database on their free weekend is a birth and christening record from 1835 of a child whose godfather appears to be Captain Anton Söderman, from Finland... Derek recalls there might have been talk of a "Finnish connection" from his grandfather.
We decide to go with Anton, as "our" Antony used only this one name on his early mariner's paperwork. We amass a lot of detail about various family groupings, including several Anton Södermans, from Öregrund. We are still missing the elusive birth date of 23 October 1833, and speculate about all sorts of things. We are quite hopeful! We have found our way around the archives, some of the Swedish, we know what means what, and I can even say "husförhörslängd" (household records) properly! We have got into the Sjömanshus records (Seamen's Union), to find 130 Söderman entries for Gamla Karleby, as well as Gävle, Hundviksvall, ... many are A. or And. and about three possible Antons. I realise, of course, there they are - father (1800s), son (1830s) and might that be a grandson (1850s)? Where is Gamla Karleby - why, it is a Swedish sailors community in Finland!
We decide we like Uppsala, having cracked how to get round the city on the cheap, and spend a lot of time in Carl Linnaeus' gardens, twice visiting Gamla Uppsala, the ancient mounded capital of Uppland (Link is to Wikip, as museum link tells you nothing in English). We get given heritage apples from her family's trees by Barbro in a pop-up farmers market, and have permaculture-conversations about brining gherkins with the cucumber man from Odlarna tradgårdsföreng. We take trains to Gävle (to see the Joe Hill museum, and also in the wild goose chase period), and dance the Shottis and Polska to a massed band of nyckelharpas at the Eric Sahlström Institute at Tobo. The process of having to buy wine in the State Systembolaget Off Licence is a bit weird though... (more like On Licence...)
My brother and his wife fly in, we show them round Uppsala and see the things that got left out because we had had our heads down! It's their wedding anniversary, and we toast them and our new grandson/great-nephew Freddie, and participate in the KulturNatten, a mad day and night of street theatre, music, food, and drink of course.
Sunday we move on to Öregrund...