Last night I watched the retirement of Washington product Daniel Bryan on WWE’s Raw. At the same time, I was researching Ernst Sundberg, the son of Nils Johan Sundberg, subject of my previous post. He emigrated from Sweden to Canada. Because he lived most of his life in Canada, I don’t have as many resources I can use to research him. The easy sources are the Canadian censuses, where Ernest Sundberg appeared in the 1911, 1916, and 1921 Canadian censuses, and his details matched up with what I knew about Ernst Sundberg.
I also have a couple of Manitoba newspapers I can view at newpapers.com and newspaperarchive.com. I found nothing about an Ernest Sundberg. However, there were a couple of references to Ernie Sundberg, featherweight wrestling champion. Going on gut, I searched online for him using Google. What appeared near the top of the results was a history theses by Charles Hatton, “Grappling on the Grain Belt: Wrestling in Manitoba to 1931”. It’s the story of early catch-as-catch-can wrestling in Winnipeg, featuring numerous bouts starring Ernie Sundberg, the hero of the local Swedish community.
Mr. Hatton’s thesis gives Ernie Sundberg’s date of birth as 2 Mar 1884 in Luleo, Sweden. And what do you know that matches up exactly with Ernst Sundberg’s entry in the Luleå birth register. We have a match!
At the end of the thesis, Mr. Hatton has images of many of the wrestlers mentioned. Two of them are of Ernie Sundberg. So not only do I now have a relative who was involved in wrestling, a form of spectacle I find very entertaining, I have photos of him!
A few days ago I got an email from someone asking about a mutual ancestor, Joseph Tornander. She sent me a portion of her pedigree chart showing her connection to him and his wife. Naturally, I wanted to add those relations to my own tree, so I started doing so. Two of them are Anna Amalia Almqvist, granddaughter of Joseph Tornander, and her husband Nils Johan Sundberg.
But I quickly came on a discrepancy. On his death record, the date of birth for Nils Johan Sundberg is listed as 14 Aug 1848. But I could find no record of his birth that matched that. Most of the online trees that include Nils Johan indicate he was born in Nederluleå parish or Överluleå parish. Neither of those has a record for a Nils Johan born on that date. Now, Sweden is a big country, so there are lots of places he could be from and possibly one of them has a matching record. But it is pretty likely that Nils Johan was born somewhere in Norrbotten. So I dug a little deeper.
There was a birth record for 21 Feb 1948 in Överluleå for a Nils Johan, born to an unmarried Greta Stina Johansdotter. And one person had an online tree that matched that. My gut feeling was this was the correct date of birth, but I need evidence for it.
To find the truth, I started with the marriage record for Nils Johan and Anna Amalia, the one record I knew referred to both people correctly. It only listed the year of birth for each. Nils Johan’s was 1848. Then I looked at the husförhör record for Nils and Anna immediately after their marriage. It also gave a birth date for Nils Johan of 14 Aug 1848. Each husförhör record includes a reference to the previous record for that person. So I created a table, and started tracing backward in time, record by record.
As an unmarried farmhand, Nils Johan moved quite frequently, but it only took going back a few years. The record for him from 1 Nov 1871 to 5 Oct 1872 has his date of birth as 21 Feb 1848, which matches up with the birth record in Överluleå. Still not solid enough to call it good, but enough to know I was on the right track. Continuing to trace back, Nils Johan appears in a record covering 1855 to 1869, with a birth date of 21 Feb 1848, in a family with parents Olof Gustaf Nordström and Margareta Christina Johansdotter. Greta Stina Johansdotter. There is a strong likelihood this is the same Nils Johan Sundberg, now living in a family with his mother and step-father.
I continued tracing backward. The first appearance of Nils Johan Sundberg in Piteå parish is in 1855 in the family with Olof Gustaf and Greta Stina. He’s listed as having joined the household in 1855. His mother joined the household in 1853. Both from Nederluleå parish. It doesn’t say where in Nederluleå for either, and there are many places they could have lived in Nederluleå.
In addition to tracing backward, I also traced Nils Johan forward from the birth record. However, shortly after his birth, Nils Johan and his mother are listed as moving from Överluleå to Piteå parish. It doesn’t say where, and there are a lot of villages they could have moved to.
Date
Date End
Place
Birth date
Record
Citation
1848-02-21
Harads Överluleå
1848-02-21
Födelsebok
Överluleå C:1 (1831-1855) Image 178 / page 174
1848-02-21
1849
Harads Överluleå
1848-02-21
Husförhör
Överluleå AI:2a (1841-1848) Image 218 / page 206
1849
1850
Harads Överluleå
1848-02-21
Husförhör
Överluleå AI:3a (1849-1858) Image 222 / page 208
The record in the next row is for Greta Stina Johansdotter; Nils Johan does not appear.
So I have a gap of 5 years for Nils Johan and a 3 year hole for his mother that I should account for in order to complete something that withstands the Genealogical Proof Standard. It’s possible that my Nils Johan son of Margareta Christina Johansdotter is a different person than the one born in Överluleå. I haven’t yet performed a reasonably exhaustive search. Both their names are common enough there could be others.
But I have enough to satisfy me for now. And I absolutely can answer the question as to what Nils Johan’s date of birth is. It is 21 Feb 1848.
And I even have a pretty good idea how the change in date happened. If you look at the attached image for the record that shows him living in Rosvik from 1871 to 1872, you will see the person listed below has a date of birth of 14 Aug 1842. When Nils Johan moved and a new record was created, the religious official who created the new record looked to the old one to fill out the information properly. It looks likely to me that he transcribed the day and month from the person listed below. Every record created after that copied the same, incorrect, birth date until the day he died.
