Separating the Generations/Children

We see these all the time in Ancestry Public Trees–where the submitter has mashed on two or three generations. The problem can also appear when we have too much information about three same named people and we don’t know what information goes with which. The result? An ancestor has a census entry after their death or a child born within nine months of the first. We know they are wrong but what is right? And more importantly, how can we extricate ourselves from this muddle?

I came across this problem recently while I was writing up a case study of my Swedes, but allow me to proceed—think of them as the Joe and Jane Smiths.

This is a very handy technique when you are faced with the same problem.

The research question was:

Sven Nilsson was born 6 December 1761 to the parents Nils Nilsson and Johanna Svensdotter of Ågård farm in Hishult Parish, Sweden. Who were his parents?

It seems pretty obvious doesn’t it? I found THREE married couples who could have been the parents–all with the same names. Two even lived on the same farm!*

Back in 2016 I took Tom Jones’s SLIG course in Advanced Methodology and this was one of the exercises he gave us–three generations of same-named men with maybe 15 events, all mushed together. We had to separate them into the proper generations. This is a little simpler example but not dissimilar in technique.

These married couples had a marriage date, and 10 children and 40 +/- witnesses between them. I put all of my data into a table to see what it looked like. (I have not shown you the citations for space reasons.)

This is also an exercise in FAN Club or cluster analysis.

Take a look at it. A sharp eyed genealogist will probably notice two things right away. Take a minute. Can you see them? How would you go about solving this puzzle? Hide the rest of this post and see if you can see the clues needed to solve this mash-up. Who were the parents of Sven?

First, I grouped the children by location. with St[ora] Sionhult, Sionhult, Ågard and Krogshult as my clusters. This gave me four locations, but three same-need couples. Someone moved.

• No child was born illegitimate.
• There is only one Sven, so at least I didn’t have two same-named children.
• Notice that some of the children are born less than nine months apart, meaning they had different mothers.
• Notice that Nilla Svensdotter of Krogshult witnessed the christening of Hans (1) in Krogshult and for Sven of the Ågård family. If the Krogshult family is the same family as the Ågård family, then they are the family that moved.
• Now these Krogshult children can be removed from the list and put with the right family and that includes Sven!
• No Krogshult witness showed up for either of the Sionhult families.
• To verify your answer, you need to verify the other two couples and their children, luckily Sweden named all children in their tax records where they were of age or not. (not shown)

But, in order for he Krogshult family to be the parents of Sven, they have to leave Våxtorp Parish between the christening of Hans (2) in May of 1759 and Sven in December 1761. Luckily, the tax assessor likes to make sure everyone gets taxed in the right place.

Hallands läns landskontor t o m ca 1905 (N) EIII:33 (1762) Image 2990 / Page 587 (AID: v98560a.b2990.s587, NAD: SE/LLA/10889-1) Hishult, Ågård farm, Nils Nilsson.

“Nils Nilsson from No. 1 Krogshult, Våxtorp parish (with tick marks for Nils and his unnamed wife)” There is also a taxable day worker working on the farm who is a widow named Ingier. In the comment on the right side of the entry: There is a date of “16 February 1761.” The family moved on this date, right in the identified gap they needed to so Sven could be born in Ågård farm in December of 1761! And yes, you can find a similar entry in the Våxtorp tax register as well.

One more thing helped seal this deal. The other two families on Sionhult had their children listed in the taxi register consistent with the list of births above.

Remember there is no easy button in genealogy, but there are techniques that can “un-muddle” a mash-up.

Happy hunting!

Jill

What I have done since the last post: It all pretty much the same. I continue to work on my next book, a compilation of all my articles (of which this is one). I naively thought that each article would just need a little brush up–ooooh, was I wrong. I have about 20 articles of 13 to 30 pages, some written 10-12 years ago. They all need attention. I am also getting ready to go to the New England Genealogical Consortium’s conference where I will give two presentations and one workshop. I love this stuff!! I am honored to be asked and to share my knowledge.

*Full disclosure: I didn’t see this problem right away, and assigned Sven’s parents to the town official’s daughter. In my defense, I included a note in my RootsMagic database that there may be a problem, as there were at least two couples with the same name. When I came back to Sven, I saw the issue and set about solving it. This was published as an article the Swedish American Genealogist.