John Martinson’s given name in Sweden was Jöns Mårtensson. (Throughout the John Martinson Project, I will refer to him as Jöns Mårtensson during his time in Sweden, and as John Martinson during his time in America.) He was born September 23, 1833 in Östra Vemmenhög parish in Malmöhus County, Sweden. He was baptized the following day. Following is an image of the entry in the baptism register at Östra Vemmenhög church.1
Each of the numbered elements is described below.
- The two dates indicate first the birth date (September 23, 1833) and second the baptism date (September 24, 1833). Church law required infants to be baptized within eight days after birth.2 As we will see, his birthdate is often misstated in other later records as September 24 or September 25 (even his tombstone is wrong!).
- His parents are identified as Husmannen (crofter) Mårten Nilsson and his wife Anna Jönsdotter. A crofter was allowed the use of a cottage and a small parcel of land in exchange for labor on the owner’s farm. Crofters were generally extremely poor and had few if any opportunities for improving their economic standing.
- Test. (witnesses) barnmorska (midwife) Karna Nils Svensdotter, Husmannen Anders Mårtensson, and pigan (maid) Else Jönsdotter. I know Else is Anna’s sister (and thus Jöns’ aunt). I am sure the other two are family members also. As I extend the family tree perhaps their identities will become clear.
- The mother is 25 years old
- The child’s name is Jöns
- The family lives at Ölöf, which seems to be a farming “compound” with several families living there
- The mother was reintroduced to the parish on November 3. This was a custom or rite that signified cleansing after the birth.3
Östra Vemmenhög is located in the southernmost portion of Sweden in the former Malmöhus County which is part of Skåne province.
We visited the Östra Vemmenhög church in 2013. We walked around the ground but were not able to go inside.
Research Techniques
How did I know where to look for this record? Well, the Martinson family in America has preserved and passed on the parish of origin for John Martinson. Here is the first page of a 1977 family history for the Martinson family. Notice the misspelling of the parish name, but still close enough to easily locate his birth and baptism record (note his birth date of September 24 which we know to be off by a day).
The records of the Covenant Church in Swedeburg, Saunders County, Nebraska are helpful also. The Swedeburg church books appear in two separate collections. The best and most recent filming is available through ArkivDigital.4 However, that collection is missing an older record book and thus John is not to be found. Another collection on Ancestry has the older book that includes an entry for Jöns Mårtenson [sic].5
Here we see his birth date (misstated as September 25) and his birth place of Ölöf, which is a farm name not a parish name. But it also shows that he arrived from Önnestad as his last parish of residence in Sweden – which is correct – and which would have enabled me to find him easily in Swedish church records. We will return again to all of these Swedish American church records in later posts.
I’m curious where the 1977 family tree information came from since it mentions the parish name. Either an older church book was extant, or the birthplace was known to John’s grandchildren. As we will see later, John Martinson first belonged to the Grace Lutheran congregation in Swedeburg, but he joined the Mission Covenant Church when it split away in about 1877. So this parish name could have been in older books from the Lutheran church as well (I have not found books that old however).
What if I hadn’t been lucky enough to have a family history or church records as a starting point for my research? Well, I looked into it. I could have used his tombstone as a starting point since it gives his birthdate albeit incorrectly. This would have made it tricky to find him in the ArkivDigital indexes. However, Nilla’s information is correct and she is easily located using ArkivDigital’s “BiS (Population of Sweden) 1800-1947” index. Eventually, I would have come across her marriage record and various household examination records that would have led me to Jöns.
1 Östra Vemmenhög (M) CI:7 (1832-1860) Image 110 / Page 13 (AID: v113967a.b110.s13, NAD: SE/LLA/13531). Östra Vemmnhög Parish (Malmöhus County, Sweden), “Födelse och dopböck (Birth and Baptism Records) 1832-1860,” CI:7; Regional Archives, Lund; digital images, “Parish/Congregation Archives”, ArkivDigital (http://www.arkivdigital.se/aid/info/v113967a.b110.s13: accessed 8 April 2023), image 110, page 13.
2 Morris, Geoffrey Fröberg, A Practical Guide to Swedish Church Records for Genealogy and Family History (Phoenix: Swedish Genealogy Guide LLC, 2020), Page17.
3 Johansson, Carl-Erik, Cradled in Sweden (Sany, UT: Everton Publishers, 2002), page 108.
4 Swedeburg Covenant Church (Saunders County, Nebraska, USA), Vol:1 Congregation Records, 1877-1934, ArkivDigital (https://www.arkivdigital.se : accessed 9 April 2023).
5 Swedeburg Covenant Church (Saunders County, Nebraska, USA), Evangelical Covenant Church, Swedish American Church Records, 1868-1970, Ancestry.com (https://ancestry.com : accessed 9 April 2023).
