This is my blog about my genealogy and especially about
swedish and swedish -american genealogy especially my podcast Anna-Karins Genealogical Podcast http://annakarin.libsyn.com
This year's Genealogy Days 2022 where held in Skövde 20-21 August 2022 at Arena Skövde/.The genealogy days were organized by The Skövde Genealogy Society . The Genealogy days are the yearly conference of the Swedish Federation of Genealogical societies .It have been held since 1988 with an exception in 2020 due to Covid 19.In 2021 it was held digitally online.
Genealogical Societies, Genealogy vendors and genealogists from all over Sweden and neighboring countries met.to listen to lectures, meet and buy genealogy related products. among the international vendors represented where Ancestry.com,My Heritage,FamilyTreeDNA
Niklas Hertzman from Arkivdigital.com helped keen genealogists with the art of
find their ancestors in church records and other old documents. Arkivdigital is a company that digitizes and indexes swedish archival record in color.
Two happy ladies from the Ancestry..com Swedish team gave away bags of sweets
for Genealogists in and sold genealogy subscriptions and DNA tests.
Ted Rosvall spoke about Jean Baptiste Bernadotte (Karl XIV Johan) 1764-1844 and his descendants both legitimate and illigitimate . Among the Bernadotte descendants are members of today's royal families in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and several former royal and princely houses in Greece and Germany as well as several noble and non-noble families across Europe and other parts of the world.
Mr. DNA. Peter Sjölund gave a well-attended lecture on Genealogy and DNA.
Peter Sjölund became famous throughout Sweden in 2020 when he used genetic genealogy
During the 16th century, both England and Sweden were ruled by the colorful royal houses Tudor and Vasa. Both families had seized power by force, both had colorful and ruthless and charismatic rulers such as Gustav I , Erik XIV , (John III and Charles IX in Sweden and Henry VIII and Elizabeth I in England. One of my distant relatives came to serve members of both.
British School 16th century _A young lady aged 21 Possibly Helena Snakenborg WikimediaCommons
Helena (Elin) Ulfsdotter Snakenborg was probably born around 1548-1549 in Fyllingarum manor in the province of Östergötland as the daughter of Gustaf Vasa's councilor Ulf Henriksson Snakenborg to Fyllingaryd in Östergötland and Agneta Knutsdotter.Lillie. Helena´s family was a branch of the old noble family Bååt (Boat) that sometimes used the name Snakenborg wich came from Helenas fathers paternal grandmothers side of the family. Since the Swedish nobility were just beginning using family names in the 16th century Helena would sign herself as Helena or Elin Ulfsdotter (daughter of Ulf.)
Tre Kronor The old royal castle in Stockholm (burned 1697) The Stockholm residence of the Swedish royal family and Helena Snakenborgs workplace as a maid of honor to princess Cecilia of Sweden. The castle in a painting from 1661 by Govert Dircksz Camphuysen. WikimediaCommons
Helena was one of the youngest of her parents six children. Due to her father's position as a member of the Privy Council of Sweden, she probably already came into contact as a child with first the elderly miserly king Gustaf I and later the young handsome ambitious but mentally unstable Erik XIV court. Helena was of the same age as Gustav I:s three youngest children Sofia, Anna and Karl (Charles IX), perhaps they were brought up together at the royal castle Tre Kronor in Stockholm.
Erik XIV had big plans for his future marriage. As early as 1559, he sent his younger brother Johan (John III) at the head of a delegation to England to propose to its new queen Elizabeth I. The delegation was well received but Elizabeth very civilly declined. Erik did not give up and contact between the courts continued. Princess Cecilia Erik and Johan's younger sister admired Elizabeth and began to correspond with her, expressing a desire to visit her in England.
Princess Cecilia Gustavsdotter Vasa of Sweden unknown artist: WikimediaCommons
In 1564 the political situation in Sweden had taken a dramatic turn. King Erik had thrown his brother Johns and Johns new bride into prison. Princess Cecilia naturally was upset by this and protested. She was anxious to leave Sweden and visit England with her new husband Markgrave Christopher of Baden-Rodemachern .
In the early autumn of september of 1564 the couple left Stockholm together with a large group of courtiers including the now 15-year-old Helena Snakenborg as one of her maids of honour. Due to the war with Denmark, the entourage had to travel over Finland, Livonia, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. After a stormy crossing the they landed in England and on September 12th they made their magnificent entry into London.
Princess Cecilia was wearing a black velvet dress with a mantle of silver fabric. studded with pearls. and her maids of honour including Helena wore dresses in crimson and coats of the same fabric and colour. For Helena, the arrival to London must have been overwhelming. With about 100,000 inhabitants, London was one of Europe's largest cities more than 10 times larger than Stockholm. Elisabeth I's court was with its splendor one of the most sophisticated in Europe.
The Darnley Portrait Elizabeth I ar. 1575 National Portrait Gallery WikimediaCommons
Princess Cecilia and her entourage were initially well received by the Queen, who became the godmother of Cecilia´s eldest son Edward Fortunatus, born a few days after her arrival in London and named after the Queen's younger brother Edward VI. However Cecilia's wastefulness soon caused tensions in her relationship with the Elizabeth I. A life-changing event for Helena came when a prominent courtier William Parr first Marquis of Northampton 1513-1571 fall in love with her.
William Parr First Marquess of Northampton by Hans Holbein the Younger Royal Collection WikimediaCommons
William Parr was the brother of Catherine Parr 1512-1548 Henry VIII sixth queen and thus Elizabeth I's stepmother. He had a complicated private life. He was a newly widowed but his first wife Anne Bourchier, whom he divorced twenty years earlier, was still alive and it was considered that he could not remarry as long as she was alive. We do not know what Helena felt about her 35-year-old suitor. She must have been aware that a marriage with him would make her one of England's highest ranked ladies. She wrote to her worried mother in Sweden and emphasized his fine manner and high social position.
Princess Cecilia and her husband had by this time hastily left England to escape her large debts.Her debtors sized all her and her maid of honours clothes. The angry Cecilia woved revenge on England and Elizabeth !
Helena remained in England. Queen Elisabeth I , had become attached to the young girl and secured Helena a position at court by appointing her as one of her maids of honour. Life at the Elizabethan court,despite all the luxuries, was often stressful. Elisabeth I was a charismatic queen but also moody with outbursts of anger as she could also beat her favorites at court. Helena's experience of serving members of the fierce and suspicious Vasa dynasty certainly came in handy.
In 1568 in Sweden the political situation had changed once more . King Erik XIV had descended into mental illness and been deposed by his brother John III who seized the throne. Erik XIV would later die in prison in possibly killed by being given peasoup spiced with arsenic !
It was probably during this time that the first portrait considered to depict her was painted (see top of page). She wears a white petticoat with red flowers under a red petticoat. On her head she has a white floral beret adorned with a white and a red feather.
Helena and William Parr married in May 1571, after the death of his first wife, the Queen attended the wedding which took place the Queen's Closet in Whitehall Palace. Helena became a widow when her husband died after just four month of marriage. William Parr died with big debts which the queen had to pay.
After her husbands death Helena returned to the royal court as one of Elizabeth I s ladies in waiting As the dowager marchioness of Northampton, Helena was the highest ranking lady at court after Elizabeth I and the queens cousin lady Margret Douglas Helena returned as a widow to her service as a lady in waiting to the Queen and it was at the court that in the mid 1570s she met the man who became her second husband Sir Thomas Gorges 1536-1610.
Portrait of Sir Thomas Gorges (1536-1610) of Longford Castle in Wiltshire, a courtier and Groom of the Privy Chamber to Queen Elizabeth I Wikimediacommons.
Thomas Gorges was one of Queen Elisabeth's chamberlains. Through his kinship with the powerful Howard family, he was related by both Queen Elisabeth's mother Anne Boleyn and her third stepmother Katherine Howard.
Despite his kinship to the queen Thomas Gorges was not considered to be of the same rank as Helena, since he did not yet have his own noble title. Elizabeth I who chose to live unmarried was extremely reluctant to allow her courtiers to marry. This was probably what made Helena and Thomas marry in secret in 1576. The queen was furious and banished Helena from the court and threw Thomas Gorges into the Tower of London!
However, the queen soon forgave the newlyweds and allowed them to return to court. Helena and Thomas Georges Marriage seems have been harmonious and resulted in eight children of whom six lived to adulthood. The time the couple did not spend at the royal court, they stayed at Longford Castle near Salisbury in the county of Wiltshire in southwest England. During their time, the property was expanded into a magnificent castle inspired by the Swedish Vasa castles
.The diplomatic relations between England and Sweden in the 1570-thies was a bit tense. The princess Cecilia had returned to Sweden and settled in the city of Arboga . She send privateers out the Baltic where they sized the cargo of English ships.The princess meant that she had the right to keep the cargo as compensation for the property she had lost to her debtors when she left England in 1566.
In 1582 Thomas Gorges lend an embassy to Sweden where he also met members of the Snakenborg family. As far as we know, Helena never returned to Sweden after her move to England. But she corresponded with her mother and siblings, one of her brothers was present at her first husband's funeral in 1571.
In 1580ties he Elizabeth I rewarded Helena and her husband with the Sheen property for their lifetime. Sheen was located near the Richmond Palace, the queen's main residence, which allowed the spouses to live with the children even when they were in court.
Helena remained Elizabeth's close confidant and, due to the Queen's faltering health often had to represent the queen on official occasions at the end of the 1590s. At the Queen's funeral in 1603, she walked closest to the coffin as the highest ranked female mourner present.
Helena Snakenborg, Marchioness of Northampton, 1603 Helena Snakenborg widow marquis of Northampton in that costume she bore at James I coronation 1603 artist Robert Peake the Elder WikimediaCommons
Helena and Thomas Gorges attended the coronation of the new King James I in 1603 at Westminster Abbey in London. Helena was portrayed by the artist Robert Peake the Elder in the magnificent red dress adorned with ermine she wore at the coronation.
After Thomas Gorge's death in 1610, her Helena increasingly withdrew from the center of power of which she had been a part since her arrival in England 45 years earlier. She returned to court a few times to assist in diplomatic negotiations with Sweden over a possible marriage between the princess Elizabeth and the Swedish prince Gustavus Adolphus son of Helenas childhood friend king Charles IX which was never completed due to the opposition of the princess mother queen Anne of Denmark.
Helena Snakenborg lady Gorges detail of grave monuments in Salisbury Cathedral horiginal photo: tudorqueen6.com
She had a varied life to look back on and a large family to worry about. According to a contemporary writer, she had 92 descendants at the time of her death! Helena died on 10 April 1934 at the age of 86 at Longford castle and was buried next to Thomas Gorges under a stately monument in Salisbury Chatedral (No bad career for a girl from Östergötland)!
Monument and effigies, in Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire, of Helena Snakenborg (d.1635) and her second husband Sir Thomas Gorges (1536–1610). Erected after her death in 1635
Austria started burning at about the level of 45 ° 01'N 41 ° 30'W about midway between Newfoundland and the Azores. the burned out wreck probably drifted for a while before it sank to the bottom (Austrias wreck site)
Austrias wreck created a stir on both sides of the Atlantic, primarily in the USA and Germany, and newspapers reported extensively about the disaster.
On 3 November 1858 The Hamburg city Senate conferred .the Hamburgian honorary gold medal to Captain Ernst Renaud of the Maurice and C A Funnemaityrk of the Caterina and honorary medal in silver to 4 other crew members for the rescue of the surviving passengers.
Charles Rosene jr returned to his mother and siblings in Richmond, Virginia, about 1870 he settled in New York where he worked as an actor .He married at least two times and had seven children. According to the US Federal census in 1900 he was retired and living with his family in Manhattan He died 1911 in New York at an institution for the mentally ill .
The fate of Charles (Claes) Högqvist, Sven Nilsson and Swen Peterson remains unknown they probably remained in USA.
H C Andersen deeply mourned Henriette Wulff . She had been one of his closest friends,and she had been like a sister to him. With her death his wish to visit USA vanished since he became scared of the sea voyage . He wrote a poem in her memory in seven stanzas published in the danish newspaper Dagbladet, on October 22, 1858.
In Åby parish the pastor wrote in the note on Carolina Nilsdotter emigration to America in the margin of the church examination rolls "perished during voyage to America Sep 13th 1858"
The news of August Theodor Mankées death reached both his family in Stockholm and the ba ptists in Rock Island, his two small daughters were send to the family in Stockholm where they grew up. One moved back to Chicago while the other became a clergyman's wife on the island of Gotland.
Carl Johan Holmberg's gold nugget was taken from his dead body and sent to his sister in Sweden
Anders Viktor Lindstein remained in the USA a few years after the sinking of the Austria but returned to Sweden. around 1861. He remained unmarried and lived a quiet life .Han worked as inspector at an ironmill but was active in the Swedish Sharpshooter movement in Falun in 1860-thies. He died in 1890 in Falun and was buried in Stora Kopparberg.but by then the disasater of the Austria had slipped into history's oblivion.
After taking up the English passengers in SouthamptonAustria sailed out onto the Atlantic .The journey was relatively uneventful since ther was headwind the ship was estimated to arrive in New York a little later than expected.
At noon on September 13 it was decided to fumigate the sterage, by smoking it by dipping a red hot chain into a bucket of tar. The chain soon became too hot for the boatswain to hold and dropped onto the deck, which immediately caught fire. Soon the cry was heard:
Feuer! (Fire !!)
Although the ship traveled only at half speed, it was impossible to stop the steam engines since enginecrew had become asphyxiated by the smoke.
As the helmsman and the captain abandoned the ship, the ship swung into the wind, which further allowed the fire to spread along the ship, devouring the the mahogany veneer and varnished bulkheads and painted shots. The propeller could not be stopped and the rudder became useless.
Panic broke out on board. The passengers who did not suffocate by the smoke were burned to death by fire or drowned when they jumped overboard to escape the flames. Others died when they were drawn into the rotating propellers. Anders Victor Lindstein told:
The horrible scene at the ship's fire is difficult to describe, you can make yourself an idea about it at the thought that out of 600 people, only 89 became saved. I saw mothers take their children, whose clothes already on fire, and throw them into the sea before plunging themselves into the waves
Charles Rosene and his son Charles Jr. had been sitting near the engineroom when the fire broke out. Charles, Jr. told:
:My father and I ran forward to escape the fire and was followed by the other passengers. I saw the fire penetrate through the valves within 10 to 15 minutes came the call to the lifeboats!
The panic-stricken passengers struggled to get space in a lifeboat, but disarray prevailed
Several lifeboats were launched but . but drove off before anyone had time to rise.
When the firstofficer took a knife and cut the ropes that held one of the lifeboats it fell into the water, the passengers that were inside were thrown out and the boat filled with water Charles Jr. ended up in the water but managed along with some others get into the boat, it however, turned over several times and more people fell out and drowned.
Charles Sr.clinged to the boat for a short while but then lost his grip , and disappeared into the waves. Claes Högqvist clung to one of Austrias lifebuoys for several hours before he could be helped into the lifeboat.
The first vessel to observe the disaster was the French bark Maurice which immediately rushed to help. Att seven in the evening arrived at the burnt ship and could rescue the first survivors.fromthe lifeboat. The next morning the Norwegian sailing ship Catarina picked up the remaining survivors who clung to the charred hull or were floating on wreckage nearby while the charred remains of the burned-out ship was left to sink.
Anders Lindstein was one of the last people pulled alive from the water.., his friend Carl Johan Holmberg was hanging dead on the bowsprit, where he had tied himself. In total, only about 90 people were rescued of the ships originally about 540 occupants.
During the early days of the swedish emigration In the 1840-1850 thies most emigrants left Sweden on sailings ships from swedish ports .Most of the ships where not regular passager ships .The journey could take between 8-12 weeks. However, there were already at that time bigger ships specialized in passenger traffic with hundreds of emigrants on board.
They were combined sail and steamships that passed from the British, German and French ports. They traveled quicker across the Atlantic than sailing ships and crossed the Atlantic in about 14-21 days. Even though they were both bigger and faster , they were not always safe. Several major disasters occurred during the 1840-1850's. one of the worst was the Hamburg-America Line Austrias fire on September 13th 1858.
The Hamburg-America Line had started its passenger traffic in 1847 with sailing ships but in 1857 supplemented it with steamers and purchased four new ships to operate the route from Hamburg to New York. In 1855 Hammonia and Borussia entered into service i, and in 1857 followed the sister ships Saxonia and Austria.
Austria was built on Werft Caird & Company (Caird & Co.) shipyard in Greenock in Scotland and launched June 23rd 1857.She was 318 ftand 2,684 BRT, with three masts and single screw propeller propulsion. The ship was built as a troop transport ship for the British East India Company. She was, however, an unlucky ship. Already on October 5th 1857, she was hit by a storm in the Bay of Biscay which killed a crew member .It severely damaged the ship which had to sail back to Plymouth to undergo extensive repairs. On her second trip, she again encountered a storm both steam engines were badly damaged this time she must also return for repairs in Plymouth In May 1858 was taken over by the Hamburg-America Line and was deployed on the route Hamburg-New York
On the quay in Hamburg where emigrant ships moored swarmed with people .Most of those who would sail with Austria came from different parts of the german speaking areas.There were no united Germany yet..Hamburg was an independent city state, and the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein belonged to Denmark...Some of the passengers came from different parts of the the Habsburg empire , a number of Americans who were visiting Europe were a also among the passengers. A dozen Scandinavians had also solved tickets in different price ranges.
Henriette Wullf and her friend and companion Caroline Howith from Copenhagen had allowed themselves first-class tickets .Caroline was a was a well-travelled single 54 year old sophisticated lady and a close friend of the writers H C Andersen and Fredrika Bremer .This would be Caroline's third trip across the Atlantic in 10 years. She had previously visited both the Caribbean and the United States with her brother and after his death, she decided to definitively emigrate and settle in the United States.
Two returning Swedish gold-diggers Anders Viktor Lindstein and his friend John Holmberg had bought tickets in the cabin class both men came from Västra Vingåker in Södermanland.They had visited friends and family and were now both on their way back to California .
Among the third class passengers were some other returning Swedish gold-diggers including Swen Peterson and S.P. Swensson from Landskrona area in Skåne .Swensson had married Peterson's sister Olivia and she was now following them back to USA. .The three siblings Anders,Sven and CarolinaNilsson came from Kläckeberga in Kalmar county .They had early lost their parents Anders had became a sailor and was now returning to bring his siblings to USA. .From Söderhamn came Charles Högqvist who had been on a visit to his hometown Söderhamn in Hälsingland ,with him followed the farmer Lars Dahlström from Söderala who decided to seek his fortune in America
Other Swedish passengers who had been home on a visit, Charles Rosin
Rosin had already in his youth emigrated from Kalmar to America now he and 16-year-old son Charles Jr.on their way home to Richmond , Virginia after having visited relatives, August Theodor Mankee had visited relatives in Stockholm and was now on his way home to Rock Island, Illinois. Among the Scandinavians were also Sven and Daniel Danielsen who sailed to Hamburg from Stavanger. in Norway.
On August 31 all passengers were carefully recorded In the passenger lists
Austria sailed September 1, 1858 from Hamburg on her third trip to New York with about 538 people aboard passengers and crew under command of Captain FA Heydtman three days later she arrived in Southampton where additional passangers boarded .In the morning of September 4rd Austria steered out on the Atlantic The ship was estimated to arrive in New York on September 18th. Unfortunately most of those on board were never to arrive to their destination.
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