Well, I am back again!

Seems I have a hard to to keep track of where my blog spot is. So sorry I have been neglectful.

Recently I have returned from the Swedish American Genealogist Conference held annually in Salt Lake City, which this year coincided with the SwedGen tour. A great week and I was able to break through some brick walls.

For the past 3 or 4 years I have been trying to move back in time, trying to find the parents of Lena Stina Gråberg born in Stenninge in 1739. I really felt I had hit a dead end. I couldn't locate Stenninge and the parish rolls didn't go back far enough to put Lena Stina with her parents.

Well, I signed up for a private consultation with the SwedGen group and a great stradegy came out of it. First with went to DIS.SE and used the Gråberg surname in Östergotland (the county that Lena was living in with her husband) and got two hits, but no Lena Stina. But we did get a hit for a Daniel who was a few years younger than Stina; and we got a hit for Anders father to Daniel. It was a thread a possible lead. The researcher had found a death for Daniel, but didn't state a death for Anders, but did state that the family was from Skänninge parish. I then found out the Stenninge and Skänninge were the same place.

First I looked up Daniel's birth, he was found with ease. Then I checked the 1739 records for Lena Stina (possibles included Helena Kristina, and all its derivatives), no luck her birth wasn't there. So Olof, from SwedGen, recommended that we check the probates before tackling the tax records. There he was Anders Gråberg died at age 40 on 26 Feb 1747 in Skänninge parish, he left his widow Helena Hallin, his son age 5 Daniel; his daughter age 8 Helena Christina. Now I had my Lena Stina, she was left without a father in 1747. No birth record though, the Skänninge parish records are fragmented that year and difficult to follow, but I am sure this is my Lena, and now I had her mother's maiden name.

So I was off and running. The techinque of using DIS.se to get the possibilities helped alot so I tried it again looking for Hallin's from the same parish and NOTHING. So where to start, well I went to the Bouppteckningars, the probates. I did find a Daniel who died in 1752, so I thought I would look and see who his heirs were. And indeed he left a wife, a son Daniel; 3 daughters: Helena now the wife of master painter Hans Zelleroth; Elizabeth wife of Johan Myrtenberg; Anna Christina the widow of Nils Myrtenberg. By review each of the probates for the sisters: Elizabeth, Anna Christina, and Daniels, I was able to piece together a family structure.

I have come to believe that with time and patience everyone of my ancestors will be found.

After much persistantance, I have determined that I might just have found a few more relatives in the US, but I will save for another day.