Re: Anything helps
JOHNSON
Posted By: Joey Stark In Response To: Re: Anything helps (Sarah Thorson Little)
Date: 9/20/2018 at 18:54:58
Hi Laurie,
Swedish names are very confusing to me, too. Definitely different from the American convention of the same surname being carried down from one generation to the next. Basically, Swedes have a given name, and their surname is usually derived from the father's given name. For example, Johannes JOHNSON would be Johannes, John's son. If Johannes had a son Nicholas, he would be Nicholas JOHANSSON (Nicholas, Johannes' son). Nicholas' son Carl would be Carl NICHOLSON (Carl, Nicholas' son), and so on... the surname can change with each generation. Daughters work the same way... Johannes' daughter Carolina, for example, would be Carolina JOHANSDOTTER (Carolina, Johannes' daughter), until she got married and took on her husband's surname. Say she marries a Peter ANDERSON... she would probably be referred to as Carolina, hustru af Peter (Carolina, wife of Peter). It's enough to put one's brain in knots.You'll want to start with what you know, which will be you, your siblings, and your parents. For those who have died within the last 75 years, obituaries and Wills will be a major source of info. Once you get back to 1940, Federal Censuses are available every 10 years all the way back to (I think) 1790... except for the 1890 Census which was lost in a 1921 fire. Iowa also conducted state-level censuses in between the Federal ones, and I've transcribed those for Jefferson County. I think the first one was 1854, then 1856, 1885, 1895, 1905, 1915, and 1925 would have been the last one. There's a link on the Jefferson County IAGenWeb front page for the county censuses... you can either browse them or use the site's Freefind search engine to look for JOHNSONs.
I see Sarah Thorson Little came up with an obituary for Elsie JOHNSON (Thanks, Sarah!). I found one for Nicholas Henry JOHNSON, and I'll transcribe that to the Obituary Board in a bit. I'll also link it to his entry in the New Sweden Methodist Cemetery where he and Elsie and 17 other JOHNSONs are buried. I'll see what else I can find for these folks too, and post and link them. Then we'll see where we can go from there.
Joey
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