It's Been a Great Year!

To all who found this blog and read regularly, or occasionally, thank you! I've appreciated your comments, your questions, your suggestions for ancestors or topics to cover. This year has allowed me to write, hopefully in an interesting way, the stories of many of our Swedish ancestors and the times in which they lived.

I'll not be blogging on a regular basis in the new year, but if something new or exciting is found, you can be sure that I'll share it here. In fact, Myron and I, along with the Webster County genealogy website webmaster, have been working on a family story that, if we find the answer, will be posted here.

So, if you subscribe, please stay subscribed. If you want to email me with questions or with information you have in your possession, you have my email address. I assume that this site will stay active even if I'm not actively posting, but if you have a post, or several, that you find particularly interesting and want to keep, I'd suggest copying and printing them.

As you have learned from these posts, or perhaps already knew, our ancestors were not famous or rich or well-connected. No kings. No generals. No captains of industry. Our ancestors were hard-working men and women, many of whom lived lives that, on the surface, might look very ordinary. But I hope that the stories I've shared have helped you see them in a new light. Through their hardships, their sacrifices, their bravery, their talents, they rightfully take their place in our Swedish tree. A Civil War POW sparked my interest in our family history over 40 years ago, and it's been a passion of mine ever since.

If I've piqued your interest in our family history, I want to leave you this year with some free websites and suggestions for you to explore.

• Webster County Historic Newspapers -- this free site includes The Dayton Review, Fort Dodge Messenger, and many other small-town Webster County newspapers. Plug in a name and a date range and see what interesting things our ancestors did.
• Hamilton County Historic Newspapers -- this free site includes the Stratford Courier, Stanhope Sentinel, and many other small-town Hamilton County newspapers. It covers more years than the Webster County newspapers do.
• Church of Latter Day Saints - Family Search Library -- this site is free, but you need to create an account to use it all of its features. You do not need to be a member of the church to enjoy this site that has access to birth, marriage, death records, censuses, books, and many, many other helpful works. I've actively used this site and visited this library in Salt Lake City for over 25 years.

If you are eager to dig more deeply, there are several pay sites that are incredibly helpful. I subscribe to the following sites:

• Ancestry.com -- This site has been the "go to" site for genealogy research for many years, and they keep finding and adding more documents monthly. For a world-wide subscription, it costs me $149 for 6 months. Not cheap, but then again, I don't golf or have other expensive hobbies. The US-only version is less. If you purchase a subscription, be careful of what individuals post in their on-line trees. Not everything is carefully researched. I've found several errors in the public trees that include our ancestors. I use this site to host my own tree, seek hints for problem areas, and view documents that are historic and original, not from individual trees.
• Arkiv Digital -- The cost for a year is approximately $200. On this site, you will find original Swedish church records (birth, marriage, death, probate, etc) as well as population of Sweden records and much, much more. I've used this site for about 15 years nearly every day I'm at my computer. One of the new features is US Swedish church records. For example, Dayton Emanuel Lutheran Church records dating back to 1857 are there. Names of congregants, birth dates, death dates, and more. The Swedish church records are in Swedish, but the US church records are primarily in English.

Perhaps you've thought about DNA. What company? Then what? I'll admit that I'm still in the learning stages, and my siblings will tell you that anything to do with science is NOT in my wheelhouse. But my brothers and I have done our DNA, our mom has, and Rocky has. We have all used ancestry's DNA kits. I'm able to either view or manage all 5 of our DNA results on ancestry.com. My goal, besides seeing how our DNA breaks down, is to break through a few brick walls in our family. For example, Carl Lundblad, my 3rd great grandfather and father to Catherine Lundblad Linn, was born out of wedlock. That part of the tree stops at Carl. And no one with whom I've worked has found his father. I'm hopeful that DNA might be the solution to this brick wall.

I'd love to hear from you anytime, and not just about genealogy! If you have things to share, please do. If you'd like to write a post for this blog or share a photo, send it to me and I'll post it.

This hobby never ends, so you can count on me to be at the computer, in the library, tromping through cemeteries, taking photos, for years to come.

Thanks again for your support. My best to each of you in 2019!