How far can you get back?

[Cynth]

We know nothing of my father's side of the family and have a chart my great-uncle made for my mom's side going back to the mid-19 c. I like seeing pictures of the people, but just names don't seem to interest me much and there never are stories with the names in the case of my relatives. I think I understand why they came over here, land was in short supply in Sweden because it was divided equally among all the children so the farms got smaller and smaller until they could not support a family. I suppose some children left and sold their land to those who remained and it helped both sides out.

I found the four novel series of books called The Emigrants written by the Swedish author Wilhelm Moberg gave me much more understanding of where my ancestors had come from than the names on the chart. It is about the experience of a Swedish family who emigrated to Minnesota in the mid-19th century.

[Henke]

I don't have the papers here, but I think the furthest back we got was 1625.
Simon Eriksson Storkovius.

Edited birth year (found a mention on the web)

[Walden]

Being a descendant of Andrew Ross, who was a leader of the Treaty Party Cherokees and (somewhat ironically) he was brother of John Ross (leader of the rival Ross Party), I am of Scottish and Cherokee lineage. Through the Cherokees we can trace his descent to the mid 1600's (my 14th generation), and through the Scots we can trace him to the Earl of Ross.

[falkbeer]

We know nothing of my father's side of the family and have a chart my great-uncle made for my mom's side going back to the mid-19 c. I like seeing pictures of the people, but just names don't seem to interest me much and there never are stories with the names in the case of my relatives. I think I understand why they came over here, land was in short supply in Sweden because it was divided equally among all the children so the farms got smaller and smaller until they could not support a family. I suppose some children left and sold their land to those who remained and it helped both sides out.

I found the four novel series of books called The Emigrants written by the Swedish author Wilhelm Moberg gave me much more understanding of where my ancestors had come from than the names on the chart. It is about the experience of a Swedish family who emigrated to Minnesota in the mid-19th century.

Hi again!

I´ve read The Emigrants too--great books! Vilhelm Moberg (1898-1973) is one of the most respected modern swedish authors. Did you know that there was two movies made in the 70´s with Liv Ullman as Christina and Max von Sydow as Carl Oskar. I´ve got the movies on tape and they are still some of my favourite movies of all time. It´s possible you can get them from Amazon with english subtitles on DVD. The portrayl/depiction of of 17th century USA from a swedish emigrants perspective is very interesting (a far cry from the wild west movies!).