In our first chapter, we looked at Jöns Mårtensson’s birth and baptism record in Östra Vemmenhög parish, Malmöhus County, Sweden. In this chapter, we examine Jöns’ father’s ancestry in order to build out the paternal side of John’s family tree. (Note: refer to the profile page links on this page to see complete source documents and citations.)
This post is the third in the John Martinson Project series
Jöns Mårtensson (aka John Martinson) was the son of Mårten Nilsson. Mårten was born in 1803 to Nils Mårtensson and Berta Pehrsdotter. Thanks to him, his descendants have the “Martinson” surname in America.
Nils was born in 1761 and Berta was born in 1764, both in Skivarp parish in Malmöhus County, on the southern coast of Sweden. The church books for Skivarp parish don’t start until 1779, so birth records are not available for either of them. The patronymic naming system tells us that Nils’ father was Mårten and Berta’s father was Pehr. There’s a chance that more could be discovered through taxation records, but they are difficult to read and interpret.
We do know that Nils and Berta were married on January 23, 1795. Berta was already pregnant and gave birth to a son Mårten on March 12. Poor Mårten lived only a few weeks and died on April 5. “Mårten” must have been an important name to the family; Berta subsequently gave birth to two more sons also named Mårten, each of them dying about a month after they were born. A daughter Else was born in 1798 and she too died after about four months. The young couple must have been devastated to lose four children in four years. Finally another son was born on June 3, 1800 and maybe to break the curse, they named him Pehr. Pehr seems to have thrived. Another son followed in 1803 and to this one they bestowed the important family name of Mårten. This Mårten too seems to have thrived and he is the patriarch and namesake of our entire Martinson clan in America. I bet Nils and Berta would be pleased to know that this important family name survives to this day. Then finally, a daughter Bengta was born in 1806.
Here is a diagram showing the family of Nils Mårtensson and Berta Pehrsdotter.
The family lived at No. 6 Skivarp, likely a small cottage attached to a small farm. Nils was listed in the church books as an “Åbo”, meaning that he had a perpetual right to a cash lease on his farm, a right which he could pass on to his heirs.
Skivarp parish is located on the very southern tip of Sweden, right on the coast, and sits in between Östra Vemmenhög parish and Västra Nöbbelöv parish. As we will see, this whole branch of the family moved among these three parishes quite frequently. I also noted that often the Skivarp parish records are co-mingled with the Västra Nöbbelöv records because the two parishes often shared a minister.
We visited the Skivarp church during our trip to Sweden in 2013. We were not able to go inside.
This general vicinity map shows the parishes (in boxes) and some of the farms (in circles) relevant to this family. For a sense of scale, the distance between Östra Vemmenhög and Västra Nöbbelöv is about five miles
In 1819, Nils Mårtensson died at the relatively young age of 57. The cause of death was stated as “fever”. Upon his death, the authorities drew up an inventory of his estate. The estate names his heirs as his wife Berta and his three children Pehr (age 19), Mårten (age 17), and Bengta (age 12).
Nils’ assets were valued at over 2800 Riksdaler which would be something like $20,000 in today’s US dollars. That’s pretty well-to-do for a Swedish farmer of the day. His farm at No. 6 Skivarp was heritable but it doesn’t appear that his sons were able to assume the lease – I don’t know if they were too young or perhaps didn’t have the resources.
His widow Berta lived for another 13 years at least. She lived wither her daughter Bengta’s family for a time (see below) A Household Examination Record shows that in 1832 she moved to a nearby farm of Ölöf in Östra Vemmenhög parish where her son Mårten was living. I’ve been unable to find any further record of Berta in Östra Vemmenhög, however, and her date of death remains unknown.
Let’s take a look now at the three surviving children of Nils Mårtensson and Berta Pehrsdotter.
Pehr Nilsson
Pehr Nilsson was the oldest surviving son in the family. He was born June 3, 1800 at the family home at No. 6 Skivarp. When he was a young teen, possibly as early as age 13, he went to live with a nearby blacksmith, Nils Rahm, at No. 1 Skivarp. He is listed as a “journeyman laborer” and was likely in training under Rahm.
In 1825, Pehr set out on his own and moved to the nearby parish of Villie. His moving-out papers issued at Skivarp show that he had assumed the surname “Lindström”. It was a common practice for tradesmen to abandon their patronymic surname in favor of a more distinctive and perhaps “professional” name.1 He was known as Pehr Lindström for the rest of his life.
He was at Villie for only a few months before returning to Skivarp once again, and back to Nils Rahm’s workshop for another three years of training, presumably. Finally, in 1829, he moved to the nearby parish of Västra Nöbbelöv where he took a wife Elna Westergren. In all, Pehr and Elna had six children together, five of whom lived to adulthood. He was listed as “Smed” (smith) Pehr Lindström in the church books.
Pehr died in 1877 after being disabled to some degree during the last 15 years of his life. No doubt that blacksmithing at this time was hard on your body – both the physical demands and the noxious fumes.
A later phase of this project will trace Pehr’s children to see if any of them came to America or whether there are living descendants who may be DNA matches to our family.
Mårten Nilsson
Mårten is my 3x-great-grandfather. He left Skivarp in 1828 and settled in the nearby parish of Östra Vemmenhög where his wife’s family had lived. A future installment will describe his life in Sweden (1803-1889) in more detail.
Bengta Nilsdotter
Bengta married a nearby farmer Ola Pärsson on December 14, 1825. Just eleven months later, she died the day after giving birth to their son Pär. Ola remarried and his second wife Anna Jacobsdotter raised Pär. Bengta’s mother (Pär’s grandmother) Berta Pehrsdotter continued to live with the family for a few years after Bengta died. Again, a future installment will follow Pär to see whether he had descendants.
Our next chapter will explore the maternal lineage of Jöns Mårtensson.
1 Johansson, Carl-Erik, “Cradled in Sweden”, p. 36
Beautiful! Thank you!