Little Lovisa

I'm an addict. I've discovered family history and I'm obsessed. This is probably only because I'm Swedish, and the Swedes conducted "household examinations" annually starting in the 16th century. So when I was in Salt Lake City, I told them my great-grandparents names and dates of birth, and they found them! Each parish had a record book with a page for each household. The head of the household was listed at the top of the page, with spouse below and then each child was added as it was born. The priest kept track of who attended communion and what each persons knowledge of church doctrine was ( with some symbols that I don't understand). The record was updated annually for 10 years, then they'd start a new book. So there they all were, in 30 minutes or less I found a household full of people that I'd never known existed!

When a child married, if they stayed on the farm, the spouse was added (with a notation of where they came from - either a page number if they were from a family in the book, or with a moving certificate number if they came from somewhere else), and then the children, as they were born. I guess that's the advantage of having ancestors who were farmers, they tended to stay in the same place for a long time.

Now that I've found these lists of names, I've become curious about them. How did they meet a spouse from another parish? Why did they immigrate to the U.S. ? They tended to use the same given names over and over. That can be a clue that I'm looking at the wrong Johansson family. What?! A son named Erik? No Eriks in this family, must be the wrong Johansson's. And names that sound so ugly in 21st century California actually sound nice, such as Lovisa. Imagine Lovisa as Louisa with an accent. It's kinda cute. Lovisa is a three year old in wooden clogs and tights. And bangs.

I don't know what their reality was. But my imagination is very charming. They all bathe regularly and have three meals a day. And they brush their teeth! My grandma said that her father had 2 brothers and two sisters. But the household examination shows he had an older brother, Pehr Anton. Maybe Pehr was never mentioned in America because he was the one that inherited the farm? And there was another Clara ten years before Klara. But she died at two years old, several months before my great-grandfather was born, so I guess he can be forgiven for never having mentioned her.

Now I just want to find Uncle John's wife. We use his sugar bowl every day, I ought to be able to find his wife and son somewhere. I think that he might have snuck aboard the ship that took him to America, because rumor has it that he was only 16 when he joined the US Navy. These people's stories are something! I'd love to meet them, but not in person yet!