SKARABORG TALES

By Phillip

Tales of family history research tend to run backwards, as does this one. This one begins when my parents joined the church in August of 1954. I was born two years later and by the time I turned eighteen, my father had followed his father’s roots to their emigration from Europe to the American continent.

When I was called to my first mission to Sweden, there was hope that I would be able to research some of the Swedish line, but as a naive youth, I had really no idea how to proceed.  As a Senior missionary, I have a little more latitude with my time, though am still plenty naïve. I also have a wife who knows how to get things done.

Warning: This post is going to be longer than most.  At one point I thought about posting it in two parts, but since most of it is photographs, it shouldn’t be too laborious.

So, take a deep breath and plunge in.

Let me introduce Matilda Charlotte Johnson, my great grandmother or as they say in Sweden, my farfars mor (father’s father’s mother) Much of Matilda’s story is available to us thanks to a history compiled by her second daughter, Leah Allabach Vogel. 

Matilda with her husband, Louis “Dudie” Allabach

Matilda was born in rural Sweden 1871 in the farmlands between the two major lakes, Vänern and Vättern. At that time the county was called Skaraborg (prononunced skah-rah-boh- ree). “Skaraborg” is written in red on the map below.)  In 1997 Skaraborg was merged with neighboring counties and became known as Västra Götaland (Ves-truh Yoo-tuh-lond). But that is too recent to interest us.  We are looking into events closer to 150 years ago.

The nearest city to Matilda’s home was Skara. For over a hundred years, her family worked the land to the west of Skara, mostly in the parish of Synnerby. See the purple dots on the map below, about one third of the way down. 

 Leah remembers her mother, Matilda, describing the cathedral in Skara as looking like a pair of pants upside down. In Leah’s record she crosses out 'Skara' and writes in 'Synnerby.' But historically the cathedral in Skara was noted as looking like a pair of pants.

This is a photo of it taken in 1872. Even though spires have since been added to the pant legs, the cathedral is still referred to as “Skara byxor” (Skara pants). 

This is what it looks like today.

The picture below is the view from our hotel window in Skara. We were just down the street from the cathedral.

As early as 1868 drought and failed crops resulting in widespread poverty, prompted extensive emigration to North America. Her father sold his farm and arrived in the United States around 1878, but, at the age of thirteen, Matilda arrived with her mother and Verner and Wilhelm, her youngest brothers about six years later. The older children had already emigrated.

Matilda was born in 1871 in a community called Norra Vånga (Vong-gah).

Here are some photos I took of the Norra Vånga church.

Now that’s the face of a serious Family History Bloodhound.

Although Matilda was born here, she was not Christened here. At the time of her birth, her parents lived in the Vinköl (Vin-shoul) parish.

Here is the parish record (The white tab above the image designates the parish.)  Her name is on line 21, and following the line number the place of birth ‘Wånga’ (‘v’ and ‘w’ are interchangeable in Swedish).

This particular record gave us a little grief for a time. Note that the parents are listed (far right column) as Andersson, Carl (the second ‘s’ always looks mor like an ‘f’) and Johanesdotter, Anna (abbreviated here as ‘Johanesd). All of the records we have heretofore assembled have her parents named Carl Johanesson (Johnson) and Anna Andersdotter.

We freaked when we saw this on July 30^th, and spent close to two hours comparing records from other parish books before we were satisfied that this particular cleric had accidentally swapped the surnames. If this record had been correct, then everything we had collected about their predecessors would have been incorrect.

This image is from the the ‘Arkiv Digital,’ a digital library of most of Sweden’s parish records. It is surprisingly easy to follow the families through various records: Birth and Christenings, Deaths, Weddings as well as move ins and move outs. Occassionally we get stumped but, aside from needing to read Swedish in a longhand that has evolved, in some cases drastically, over the centuries,it not a complicated process. 

...exept when some priest transposes surnames.

During the decafe of Matilda’s birth, both the Norra Vånga and the Vinköl churches were torn down to be rebuilt.  The Norra Vånga church wasn’t completed until 1876, three years after Matilda’s birth.

I haven’t found any images of the old Norra Vånga church, but this is what the old Vinköl church looked like.

The new church in Vinköl was completed in 1872.  Just in the nick of time for Matilda’s christening in August 0f 1873.

We don’t know what took Matilda’s mother six or more miles to the south of her home parish at time so close to Matilda’s birth on the 26^th of August. But somehow, the child, and presumably the mother, made the long trek back to Vinköl for the christening on August 29.

This is what the new structure in Vinköl looks like.

This is actually a very original design for a church of this era. As our travels criss-crossed through Skaraborg, we found that most churches were a variation of the Norra Vånga pattern.

In addition to its unique architecture, the churchyard (read “cemetery”) is surprisingly expansive reaching out into the nearby woods.

With the exception of the Skara Cathedral, situated in the middle of the city, all of these churches are country churches without even a village attached to it.

Most the churches were built on elevated ground so that the steeples would be even more prominent on the horizons, guiding the populace to worship. The farm houses were rarely close by.

You’ll find that we will be looking and talking about the churches a lot.  They were key in many ways to the Swedish life. I've already noted the great variety of information found int he parish records.  The churches are also the most enduring edifices, easily lasting multiple centuries making them the easiest landmarks to follow our ancestors migrations.

Churches are also the most predominant landmarks as you travel through Sweden.  Take a look at this map. All of the sideways black crosses represent the parish churches. I imagine the sideways cross is used to keep it from being mistaken for the letter ‘t’. Most church floorplans from that time were in the shape of a cross as an architectural fingerprint designating the sacred nature of the building.

Here's some more purple spots.  Along the bottom edge you’ll see one near the Norra Vånga church. Almost directly above it, just south of the green E20 highway, you’ll find Vinköl. To the east of these two churches, about halfway between the two is a spot close to the number 139.  I have no idea what the 139 represents, but the purple spot represents the approximate location of Gräsöna (gre-soo-nah), the farm where Matilda’s family lived at the time she was born. 

The position is approximate, and after 190 years of agricultural transactions I would be surprised if Gräsöna still existed as a farm.

And this is where I get to eat my words.  Thanks to http://kartor.eniro.se/s%C3%B6k/skara-vink%C3%B6l-gr%C3%A4s%C3%B6na we have a satellite photo of Gräsöna.  

[All I have to do is to doubt that something is available; Google it, and I am usually proven wrong.]

I believe everything in white on the bottom half of the image is considered to be Gräsöna. It is located less than a mile west of where I planted my purple dot. The accuracy of purple dots is notoriously suspect by serious cartogrophers.

.… or so I hear,

…. Unless I just made that up.

I don’t know if Kim and I will get another chance to visit Skaraborg before we leave, but if we do we will certainly drive through Gräsöna

Records do show that Matilda’s parents eventually moved to Stacketorp, a farm in the Norra Vånga parish, where her youngest brother was born. And from there they moved to Falköping (fawl-shuh-ping) in preparation for emigrati0n to America.

In mid-1700 the Swedish government initiated major land reform. “According to the old rules, the farmers of a village all had equal share in the land owned by the village collectively, and the land belonging to their farm were split around the area. 

This made the land belonging to each farm hard to access and work, as it was spread with long distances, but it also secured a greater social justice, as everyone had both bad and good land in their possession. The result of the reform was that less, but connected, land belonged to each farm. This made it easier to use, but also lessened the standard of living for those being allotted bad land. 

Further reforms in the early 1800s forced the villagers to move their farms from the village closer to the land they had been given, which signified the end of traditional village life. (see Wikipedia topics: Storskiftet & Enskiftet)

Some of the terms used in the parish books describe our family members as farm laborers (torpare). Torpare indicates a crofter, or tennet farmer as opposed to indicating a farm holder. So when Matilda’s family moved to Stacketorp, it was to take over a croft that was owned by someone else. In Leah Vogel’s account, she sates that Carl and Anna Lovisa wanted to move to America immediately after their marriage, but it wasn’t until after 7 children were born  that they were able sell their interest in Stacketorp. Even then he only had enough money to get half of the family there. He settled his wife and three youngest children, which included Matilda, in Falköping.  Falköping is a thirty minute drive south of Skara travelling by today’s standards.  According to parish records, while Carl was living there he was registered as a laborer. His departure to America was not immediate, and when he did depart, the family was seperated by the Atlanic Ocean for six years before he could bring them to Ohio.

This next map shows the relationship between Skara, situated in the center of the top of the map, Norra Vånga,the northern-most purple spot, and Falköping, the eastern-most spot. The third spot,is the approximate placement of Stacketorp.

And now, with the family re-united in America,  this is where the story turns on it’s heel and continues its backwards course.

Matilda’s parents were both born a good deal north of Vinköl. Carl "Calle" Johansson was born in Lommagården (loh-mah-gord-en) and Anna Lovisa Andersdotter was born in Löfåsa (lu-foh- sah) sometimes spelled” Lövåsa.” Check out the purple dots below. The dot on the left represents the location of Löfåsa while Lommagården is directly south of Händene (Hen-den-eh) to the east of Löfåsa.

These familial locations are all based on birthplaces.  In the case of Carl and Anna Lovisa, their purple dots seem close enough to allow for romance and marriage, But Kim and I haven’t looked at marriage records yet. Who knows what kind of wandering they did before they bumped into each other.

Genealogist note: While we have located a number of birth records, we still hope to find marriage and death records before we submit this work to the LDS Temples. But the birth records give us a good foothold as we proceed with our research.

One of the interesting thing that stands out as we chart these birthplaces is that Carl’s family, stays mostly in the northern regions of these two purple dots while Anna Lovisa’s family stays mostly to the southern regions.  That Carl and Anna Lovisa end up taking their family as far south as Vinköl, let alone to the America’s via Norra Vånga, and Falköping, displays a pioneer spirit far different from their predecessors’ tendancies to stay close to home.

Let’s follow Carl’s family first.

Carl’s Mother, Maya Greta Eriksdotter was born in Lommagården, as Carl was. This was in 1814, nineteen years before Carl’s 1833 birth. Lommagården is in the Händene Parish you can see the church’s location marker just to the right of the word ‘Händene’ in the above map.

Here is what the church looks like now.

But,  Maja’ parents came from the lands the west of Lommagården. Her father, Erik Larsson Tanner was born in Frisängen (1783), found in the Northwestern reaches of Händena parish.  

Maya's mother, Stina Pettersdotter was born in Bertil Jacobs Gård (1785) in the Hässlossa parish even further west.

Frisängen farm’s purple dot (which looks more like a piece of popcorn than a dot) is next to a predominant “22” in a white circle. You can see the Hässlössa church mark above the purple dot which is valiantly representing the approximate location of Bertil Jakobs  gård.

And this is what the Hässlössa church looks like.

Carl’s Father, Johannes Christoffersson, was born (1802) in Torrestorp which is halfway between Synnerby and Löfåsa (that southern most purple dot on the above map). Johannes’s  mother, Christine Johannesdotter, was also born (1780) in Torrestorp. Both Torrestorp and Löfåsa are in the Synnerby parish which is central to the six different parishes that our Swedish ancestry came from.

Here is the current Synnerby church.

None of our ancestors would recognize this structure since its construction wasn’t completed until 1905.

The original church was built in 1754, but in 1770 a lightning strike burned up the roof. The building was renovated between the years of 1772 and 1775

The photo below depicts the structure that our ancestors would recognise.

For decades, as I repeatedly saw the name Synnerby in the family history records, I would picture a quaint Swedish village surrounding it.  But, as I said above, most of the churches here are isolated from the closest buidings. The following picture gives a good sense for how far away the neighboring farms were.

So, Johannes Christoffersson’s father, Christopher Törnbom, Matilda’s paternal great grandfather, was born (1777) In Löfåsa.

Sound familiar?  Ot should. That’s the same farm where Matilda’s mother, Anna Lovisa Andersdotter was born 55 years later.

So that’s Matilda’s Paternal line. 

Let take a look at her maternal line.

Anna Lovisa’s mother, Gretha Svensdotter, was born (1801) in Björsgård (byoors-gord) in the Skallmeja (skahl-mye-ah) parish.  Her father, Sven Olafsson, was also born (1766) in the same vicinity in Björsby (byoors-bee).

This is the Skallmeja Church.

This building was completed in 1868, long after Gretha and her Father were born here. I have found no images of any previous structures here.

Greta's mother, Britta Eriksdotter was born in (1776) in Aggetorp, in the southern part of the Synnerby parish.

The approximate location of Björsgård and and Björsby is marked by the westernmost purple dot adjacent to the Skallmeja Church mark. The center purple mark, south of Synnerby, shows the location of Aggatorp.

Anna Lovisa’s Father, Anders Carlson, and his father, Carl Kåhlberg, were both born in Löfåsa, as she was; Anders in 1797 and Carl in 1757. Carl’s wife, Annika Andersdotter, was born (1755) in Entorp  in the southern part of the Synnerby parish – the eastern most purple dot  on the map above.

For those of you who are confused by all this traipsing around I include the following chart I made while I was trying to figure it out for myself. It might help.

Still confused? Then forget the details. Focus on the colored lines. The red and orange lines are the Paternal lines while the blue and green lines are the Maternal lines. You can see where the Red and the Blue combine to migrate south to Vinköl where Matilda was christened and raised in her early years.

So, as I said, while Matilda’s paternal line was generated in the north, her maternal line came from the southern regions. But they all gravitated around Synnerby parish, with Lövåsa farm being the cradle for no less than four members of Matilda’s prior generations.

Noting this, Kim was eager to find Lövåsa, but we learned that printing six letters across the face of a map does not pin point a destination.  

As we were driving from Händene to Synnerby we kept our eyes open for what we anticipated would be a village. We found a sign indicating that a left turn would get us to Lövåsa. So we took turned on to a narrow lane that carried us between open fields for about a mile before we came to the next intersection sporting a sign indicating that Lövåsa was behind us.

We turned around, retraced our tread marks, and kept our eyes peeled for anything that might resemble a village. Off to the right we saw a dirt track leading up to a farmhouse nestled up against the forest. Our unexpected arrival coaxed him out of his house to see what we needed. In response to our queries about a place called Lövåsa he pointed towards the first “Lövåsa” sign, so we resumed out backtracking. While most of the length of this road was bordered by fields, not far from the first “Lövåsa” sign, there was a stand of trees and in the trees we caught view of a complex of buildings. 

We ventured onto a side road that led us into the midst of an orderly array of barns and homes. 

By one of the homes, a child was playing with a dog.  As we drove past one of the last houses, Kim noticed a woman watching us from her back yard.  She stopped the car and called to her.  The woman was a little shy about approaching us but as we explained that we were looking for the farm where so many of our ancestors came from she opened up and started addressing us in English.

She explained that Lövåsa was the name of a farm, not a village. And that it had been broken up over the years into several smaller farms.  She and her husband live in one of the houses and her son’s family live in the yellow house in the picture  below . She introduced us to an unrelated man who had lived there longer than her family had been there, hoping he might know anything more about the history of the place. None of our family names seemed familiar to him.

The woman, Yvonne, is an artist and, and invited us into a small cabin in the center of the complex. It’s the red building on the left side of the above picture. She explained that the building was a restoration of similar structures found on any Swedish farm decades earlier. The buildings were used for grain storage with a small room off to the side where a farm laborer could live.

These stairs lead up to a loft above the laborer’s room.

Very useful for storing all sorts of things, like say…

…an antique sleigh covered in lace?

But her current use of the cottage was as an art studio.

My apologies that the art is out of focus, but I will remedy that at the end of this post.

Our visit to Lövåsa was the gem of the day.  We are so grateful for Yvonne’s generous enthusiasm for sharing insights that gave us a taste of what Matilda’s ancestors’ lifestyle was like. She was a genial hostess at a moment’s notice.

Our day-long tour of just a small bit of what was once called Skaraborg will leave June 17, 2106 as a lasting memory of walking where my ancestors trod.

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS

As I noticed, most churches we visited were variations of a standard pattern, some more ornate than others. Skara byxor, being a cathedral was in a whole different class of structure. Of the parish churches, the pointed steeple was the norm.  The Händene steeple was more box like.

But the architect of Vinköl church displays a more creative streak.  Here are some more shots of it.

 

Note how the steeple is diminished and is move from the front of the building to the intersection of the four wings.

He uses a nearly freestanding bell tower at the front of the building to replace the normal steeple structure.

The Front entrance is shifted to the side of the congregations wing. 

I wonder if much controversy accompanied the design of Vinköl church amongst the clergy, the civic leaders, and the farmers.

With the exception of the cathedral in Skara all of the churches were locked, so we had no access to the interior. But here are some shots from inside Skara byxor.

The Alter

Forty years ago, as a young missionary, I noticed upon entering the cathedrals of Sweden a sense of awe coming over me.  This experience was so common, that I would pay attention to my sensibilities as I stepped from the foyer into the main chamber of any cathedral including Skara Byxor. The difference is palpable.  I do not know how much influence the Holy Ghost may have had in inspiring these impressive structures, or how much of it is just clever design, but the architecture inspires a reverent attitude in myself every time.

The Organ Loft

The Stained Glass Windows

We close with some of Yvonne Törnqvist’s art

I love the translucent feel of her work as well as her delicate handling of nature.

And now, as the setting sun disappears behind the Skara water tower...

... we bid a fond farewell to a bygone Skaraborg, cherishing the memories of its current simplicity.