Death at Sea

 In the 1840’s and 1850’s, when our first Linn and Olofson ancestors immigrated to the United States, deaths from disease, accidents, and other means were not unheard of. While many studies have been done about mortality on slave ships, little has been done to document immigrant deaths from Europe to the United States.

I’ve known about a couple of deaths in our families aboard ship, but I wanted to know a bit more about how common this might have been and about the disposal of their bodies.

Estimates of ship mortality were reported in The Journal of Economic History, Raymond Cohn, Vol. 44, No. 2, pages 289-300. In that article, mortalities were summarized:

The years 1849 to 1853 certainly caught my attention. As I continued to read this article, it became clear that few studies were done and that the results reported varied a great deal. A report by the United States Senate Select Committee on the Sickness and Mortality Onboard Emigrant Ships, No. 386, 1854, stated that .80 percent perished on ships arrived in New York harbor during 1853; .63 percent in 1854; .21 percent in 1855; and .21 percent in 1856. However, many reports claimed that mortality onboard ships was at 2 percent or even higher.

Certainly, our ancestors were cramped in steerage for the long trip across the ocean. Disease, such as cholera, was prominent, and those who were vulnerable, such as the very young or very old, were susceptible to serious disease or dying.

Olof Olsson and Kristin Larsdotter (my 3^rd great grandparents) made the trip with their 6 children, including my second great grandfather Olof Olofsson,,sailing on 3 September 1850 on the Swedish Brig Maria from Gefle to New York. Olof Olofson, farmer, age 42; Christina, age 46; Lars, age 15; Olof, age 11; Anna, age 9; Margareta, age 7; Christina, age 5; and Karin, 10 months were listed on the ship manifest.

It is the baby, Karin who died, listed as dying in New York, but likely at sea and recorded when they disembarked. I have no additional records for this death. New York, as with most states of the time, was not keeping regular death and burial records.

Peter Linn (born Olaus Petter Olausson) and his wife Sophia and their children boarded the Preciosa to New York, arriving on 8 September 1851. They were listed as Olaus P. Olofson, age 28, a farmer; wife Sophia, age 28; son Johan E, age 2; and son Ol. Leon, age 4 months. They are listed as being in a cabin. Below them are people "between deck" which sounds horrible.

In this case, it was Johan Edward, age 2, who perished on the voyage on 1 August 1851. One son had already died in Sweden; Olof Leonard, the baby, died in 1852 in Iowa; and this family lost child after child of the 7 they had, with only one growing to adulthood.

Johan Edward passed on 1 August, yet the ship didn’t land in New York until 8 September. One would guess that his body would have been buried at sea with a simple ceremony done.

To lose a loved one is always difficult; to lose a young child is more than just heartbreaking. And then to know that child was not given a proper burial with a spot one could visit is hard to even comprehend.

This is just a short look at two deaths at sea, both young travelers from our family line. Somehow our ancestors were able to keep going until they reached their destinations. The Olssons in Wisconsin; the Linns in Iowa.

THE BEGINNING OF 2023

 Happy New Year, Friends and Family!  With a redundant "new beginnings," it's time to see what else can be uncovered about our mutual ancestors. I often receive questions about the WHY. Why did our family leave? Why did they come to the United States? And why did they settle where they did?

Rarely do we have diaries and letters and newspapers to give us all the answers. But we can piece together some logical reasons for our ancestors' moves. 

As we have discussed in prior posts, often religious freedoms, forced conscription, inability to purchase land had a great deal to do with PUSHING our ancestors out of their home country. The PULL to the United States and to a specific area often had to do with being able to purchase cheap land, religious freedom, and the ability to settle in communities made up of other ethnic friends and relatives who had paved the way and had written to their homeland about this beautiful new land. Below are just a few of our Swedish ancestors and their likely reason for settling where they did.

Who or What was Waiting for our Ancestors when they came to the Midwest?

Why did Olof Olsson and Kerstin Larsdotter settle initially in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin?

An early settler to Wisconsin, Gustaf Unonious, came to the US in 1841, arriving with a small Swedish group in NY, and making their way west, much as John Linn had in 1848. But instead of staying onboard to Iowa, the group, headed by Unonious, disembarked in Milwaukee. The group settled near Pine Lake, and, through great hardships, created a place called New Uppsala. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Upsala,_Wisconsin) Unonious was called to become a minister, and, in 1845 was sent to Manitowoc to take over a congregation there. With glowing letters being sent to Sweden, often published in newspapers, it is likely that Olof Olsson and Kerstin Larsdotter learned of Manitowoc and the growing Swedish population there and decided to make their way to Wisconsin in 1850 where land was plentiful.

Why did Erick Lundgren come to Iowa?

Erick was born in Amots Bruk in Gavleborg County on 18 June 1818. He married Elizabeth Olsdotter and, together with their son Olof, came to the United States in 1869, settling in Swede Bend. By 1869, the pull for Swedes to come to America was strong; yet, it would still be difficult to learn a new language and to buy farm land without knowing others. Who else in our family was from Amot? The Barquists.  John Barquist, Sr., his wife Marget, and 6 children lived in the Swede Bend area and had been in Iowa since 1857, making them the ideal friends for the Lundgrens to settle nearby.

 

Why did Anders Lundblad come to Iowa?

In this case, Anders’ immigration to Iowa is related directly to the arrival of his sister Katrina Lundblad and her husband Gustus Linn in 1852. Anders, his wife Maria, and 6 children made the long trip to the United States and to the Pilot Mound area in 1857 where they found Katarina and Gus, willing to house them and help them settle.

 

Why did Gustaf Challgren come to Iowa?

Starting in the mid-1800s, groups of Swedes traveled across the ocean to New York and made the very long trek to the Midwest. In Illinois, religious groups such as the Swedish Jansonites settled in Bishop Hill and Gevle, Illinois; others moved along to Iowa and Minnesota. Gustaf Kjellstrom/Challgren stopped in Princeton, Bureau County, Illinois, in 1868, not far from the Bishop Hill cult settlement. Ingrid, however, came much later, in 1873, settling also in Princeton. Gustaf and Ingrid married in 1874. While I’m unsure if they had any affiliation with the Jansonites, no doubt life would have been easier with other Swedes to guide them. Five children were born to this couple in Illinois before they moved farther West to the Gowrie, Webster County, area, where there was a large Swedish group of settlers, land was plentiful, and where they had 2 more children.

 

I hope that you will continue to read this blog and that you will send questions you have about our Swedish ancestors. If I don't have an answer, I'll be researching to find one!

Multiples

We seem to be a family with very few multiple births. The only modern day multiples I know of are the twins born to my cousin Joel and his wife in 2002. But we certainly aren't known for our multiple births. Yet, there is ONE that I can report on in this post.

Kerstin Larsdotter is my 3rd great grandmother on the Olofson side. She was born to Lars Larsson and his wife Greta Ericksdotter in Farila Parish in Gavleborg County. Kerstin was one of 5 children born to this couple, and she is a twin.

• Son Lars, born July 27, 1800
• Son Eric, born April 23, 1802
• Daughters Kerstin and Marta (or Martha), born May 4, 1804
• Daughter Brita, born March 2, 1807

Marta and Kerstin, twins, born May 4, christened May 5, to farmer Lars Larsson and his wife Greta Ericsdotter in Fone (the farm in Farila Parish). The mother was 36 years old; the last column contains names of witnesses

So, maybe there's nothing too remarkable about one set of twins. But let's take a closer look at Kerstin and Marta.

Every year in Sweden, the priest would conduct a clerical survey of each household in the parish. His goal was to check on the knowledge of the Bible that each family member had, vaccinations, determine any births, marriages or deaths that occurred in the past year, and who might have moved in or out of the parish. The records are incredibly useful to a family historian and very detailed.

In several clerical surveys for Farila Parish, Marta Larsdotter is shown as having epilepsy. In the early 1800s, there would have been no treatment for epilepsy, and the physical toll it would have taken on Marta would have been tremendous. Marta died at the age of 24 on June 18, 1828. The cause of death was listed as convulsions.

The farmer Lars Larsson's daughter, Martha of Fone (the farm) died of convulsions on June 18, buried on June 22. She was 24 years, 1 month, and 14 days old.

Marta was the second child in this family of 5 children to die. In 1827, older brother Lars died of a "nerve fever" (perhaps rheumatic fever). Lars' and Marta's deaths left just 3 siblings in this family, one being the surviving twin Kerstin.

We know that Marta had epilepsy that was recorded by the parish priest in each yearly survey, but twin Kerstin also suffered from a life-long problem. My 3rd great grandmother was listed as being "hard of hearing" in several clerical surveys while she was growing up.

In case you don't know how Kerstin fits into our family, she married Olof Olsson in 1834. They had 6 children before immigrating to the United States in 1850, settling in Wisconsin. They lost their youngest child during their immigration. The family of Olof, Kerstin, and 5 children lived in Wisconsin where Olof died, family stories indicate from a logging accident. No one researching this family has found a location or date of his death. Another family story has Kerstin (now known as Christine Olofson) walking with  her surviving children to Iowa where she settled in the Stratford area. 

Christine Olofson's son Olof Olofson was my second great-grandfather, his son William Edward Olofson was my great grandfather, and Maude Edith Olofson was my grandmother.

I've not seen a mention in any record in the United States that Christine Olofson (Kerstin Larsdotter) had difficulty hearing, but I have no reason to doubt what the priest wrote in every yearly survey in Sweden.

And so, to my knowledge (and with apologies if I've left out a multiple birth in our family), we have just the two: Joel's and Lars', 198 years apart. I feel safe in saying that our Swedes aren't known for multiples!