Family history on Bengt´s father´s side

Here we have placed content that is related to information on Bengt's father's side.

By following the links on the left or on links in the text and clicking on the page you are interested in, you can find the contents of that section.

Heddamåla - Where everything started

This website has been prepared by Bengt Johansson and his wife, Eivor. Bengt is the grandson of Johannes, one of the Heddamåla-children.

During a visit to California, we had access to a large number of letters saved by one of the Heddamåla-children, namely Lydia, married Helin. The letters she had received mainly from her sister Anna, married Samuelson, but also from parents and siblings in Sweden and from a few other people.

We have chosen to write some of these letters on the computer, thus making them available to others. Our hope is that the letters will provide insight on how the Heddamåla-children was doing in their lifetime, and what difficulties and happy moments they experienced.

The letters we have chosen to write is about 50% of those found in the home after Lydia Helin, and when her son Herbert died. A total of about 250 letters. Some additional letters will probably be written at a later date. Such additions or other changes will be indicated on the website under Home, News/Changes.

For the documentation, we have applied the following:

- we have mainly chosen the written letters due to their content, which may be of interest to today's readers, and to provide a picture of developments during the entire duration the correspondence covers, namely, approximately years 1900 – 1946

- the letters have been written under the current writing style for the most part, and with today's spelling rules. However, the text, for proof of the authenticity, are kept as close to the original as possible

- some of the letters have been difficult to read and then we have tried to make an interpretation or, if we did not manage, the missing word has been indicated with a few “xxxx”

- on registration of the letters we have retained a few of them only in Swedish, when we thought the content would be interesting for the Swedish-speaking readers, but of less interest to the English-speaking

- most of the letters, we have tried to translate into English. If we then have made some purely wrong translations, we apologize for that. We have also tried to keep the language and sayings contained in the letters and as the authors had. We have therefore not tried to get them translated into modern English

- personal names and places - we have often chosen to write so as the author wrote these

- we hope we have made the correct interpretations. If you as a reader find something that is obviously incorrect, we will be happy to receive such information

- our intention is, after we have finalized the writing of the original letters, those letters will be forwarded to the Emigrant Institute in Växjö in Sweden, and thus be available for future research.

We hope you will find the material interesting and that this is going to offer an expanded knowledge and understanding of the conditions under which the Heddamåla-children lived.

You are welcome to copy material from the website, but please, notify the source where you have got the material from.

If you have information/photos we can add to the website - please let us know.

By following the menu on the left, or using the link below, you can read more about Johan Magnus and Helena.

Link to Johan Magnus and Helena - information about their life, the children of Johan Magnus and Helena, a Pedigree and a genealogical schedule