E is for Eliasson

I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge (April 2016), where we write 26 blog posts featuring each letter of the alphabet.

E is for Eliasson

Back in the day in Sweden, the patrionymic naming system was used. If a man named Jonas Nilsson had children, the boys would take as their surname Jonasson and the girls would take Jonasdotter. This would make each generation having different surnames from the previous generation.

It is very hard to keep track of these families. Just because two people had the name Jonasson didn’t mean they were related.

Our story begins with my daughters’ fourth great grandparents, Elias Pehrsson and Kjerstin “Chersti” Ericsdotter. They lived in Grolanda, Skaraborgs län in Sweden. Elias was born 10 February 1776[1] and his wife, Chersti was born 25 March 1792.[2] 

Their farm was located in Grolanda, Sweden,
right in the middle of the red circle.

They married 17 March 1815[3] and had seven children, five of whom lived to adulthood. On 10 November 1856, Elias died at the age of 80. I have written about Elias and his family before. Click here to read.

Chersti traveled to America with her sons, Anders and Gustav Eliason in 1866. They traveled under the name Eliasson but once in America, they took the name “Lundquist.” I still have not determined why they chose this name as their name in America. Perhaps the son, Johannes had chosen this name after he arrived earlier in 1852. By 1854, he was using Lundquist. It is likely when the rest of the family arrived, they took on the same name.

 

Agnes Lundquist was Thelma's mother (my children's great-grandmother)

So, your fourth great grandmother, Chersti, who started out as Kjerstin Ericsdotter, ended up in America as Chersti Lundquist. She died 15 Aug 1885 at 72 years old and was buried in Mamre Cemetery in Stanton, Iowa.[4] This family was the start of the Lundquist family in America.  

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[1] Grolanda Parish (Skaraborg, Västergötland, Sweden), Church Records, “Births, Marriages, Deaths 1831-1861,”Elias Pettersson, 1856, p 201; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : 6 Jul 2011).

[2] Börstig Parish (Skaraborg län, Västergötland, Sweden), Church Records, "Födde (Births) 1775 - 1804 (C:5)," Kjerstin Ericsdotter, 1792, p 49, digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 Jun 2011).

[3] Grolanda Parish (Skaraborg, Västergötland, Sweden), Church Records, "Marriages, Deaths 1773-1830 C:3," Elias Pehrsson & Kerstin Ericsdotter, 1815, p 323; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 Apr 2009).

[4] Verda J. Baird, Jefferson County Genealogical Society, Jefferson County Iowa Index to all Tombstones--Lockridge Township (Iowa Genealogical Society, Des Moines, Iowa, 1988), pg 30.

Copyright © 2016 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.