Say Sadie

 

Say it with me: Sadie Lefkowitz

There is a saying that you die a second time the last time your name is said. But there is a third time – when your name is changed to be unrecognizable. Sadie changed her name, as did her siblings and her husband. She was the hardest Lefkowitz sibling to track and she has been asking that her story be told.

Her birth certificate was filled out according to a midwife who assisted at the home birth. Sarah Lefkowitz was born on 23 March 1902, at 283 Stanton Street on the Lower East Side of New York City. That address no longer exists, as the tenements in that area were razed and public housing has been built over many city blocks. The New York Public Library and the city archives have horrendous descriptions and photographs of the tenements of the city.

Sadie was the seventh child of Rosa Holt Lefkowitz, a native of New York City, and the tailor Aaron Lefkowitz, an immigrant from Hungary. As two of her older siblings had died young, she was the fifth of six children who lived to adulthood. She had an older sister, three older brothers and a sister who was two years younger.

 

 

Move to Chicago

 

About the time Sadie was six years old, the family moved west to start a new life in Chicago. They rented a series of apartments and houses near Humboldt Park, Wicker Park and next to the railroad yards near Lake Michigan. The move from New York must have been quite a culture shock.

Sadie was about 12 when the family fragmented. We don’t know where she lived after her parents divorced. Her father died when she was 14 and, in early 1920, at age 17, she was living with her mother and younger sister. She had left high school after finishing her sophomore year and was working as a stenographer for a barber supply business.

Meanwhile a young man named Edwin Ira Bloch, a salesman at the Princeton Neckwear Company, had registered for the draft in 1917. The Chicago native was called up in October, 1918, and was sent to flying school in Mississippi, serving under the surname Black. The war ended shortly after he was called up and he was discharged in January, 1919. Returning to Chicago, he resumed working in neckware sales.

Sadie Lefkowitz, age 20, and Edwin I. Black, age 27, were married in Chicago by Rabbi L. Kaplan, on 28 June 1922. The couple then disappeared from the records.

 

Marriage License Image from Cook County, Illinois
Mr. Edwin I Black, age 27 and Miss Sadie Lefkowitz, age 20
Married 28 June 1922 by Rabbi L. Kaplan

 

 

A New Name

 

In the 1930 census, Edward and Carolyn Black appear. Edward, age 34, had been born in Illinois and was a neckware salesman. Carolyn, age 28, was born in New York, with parents born in Hungary and New York. She was a stenographer for a barber supply business. The ages and details all matched the couple, although the first names did not.

Tracing Edwin/Edward back in time, revealed that he had been born Isidore Bloch. He left school after completing the seventh grade and, by the time he was 16, had a job making suspenders. He continued his work in menswear throughout his life, owning his own business by 1950. His 1959 obituary said that he had been a wholesaler of men’s clothing for 20 years.

Carolyn spent some time as a bookkeeper, working in menswear with Edward, according to the 1940 census. She left the workforce and became a housewife by 1950. The couple had no children listed with them in any census record.

Edward Black died on 19 December 1959, leaving only his widow, Carolyn. She requested a military marker with a Star of David to be placed on his grave. The military clerk made a number of helpful corrections when processing the form, including writing in Edward’s name as Edwin I. Black.

Application for Military Headstone or Marker by Mrs. Edward Black on 1 June 1960
A flat bronze marker with a Star of David was requested to be placed at 
Memorial Park Cemetery in Evanston, Illinois
Several corrections were made based on military records
Name of Black Edward was corrected to Black Edwin I
Date of birth was corrected from 25 Dec 1894 to 24 Dec 1893

 

Widowhood and The Later Years

 

Carolyn applied for a Social Security card in the mid-1950s. She stated her birth date as 22 March 1902, one day off from her birth certificate. At some point she moved to the Miami Beach area, living at one time in Bal Harbour, on the same barrier island as the Surfside condominium building which collapsed.

She died in a nursing home in North Miami Beach on 15 May 1996, at the age of 94. No middle name is included for Carolyn, whose occupation was listed as an accounting clerk. Her mother’s name is correct, but her father was named as Aaron Kramer, which is the surname that three of her estranged siblings adopted. She was entombed at Lakeside Memorial Park Cemetery in Miami. The informant on the death certificate was a friend or neighbor from her Bal Harbour apartment building.

Why Sadie abandoned her nickname, and the name Sarah, is puzzling. Her choice of the name Carolyn may be tied to her family history. Her maternal grandmother was Caroline and her oldest sister, Carrie, died in infancy. Her name change from Lefkowitz to Black was simply through marriage, though her implied maiden name of Kramer is another puzzle. 

 

We are left, as always, with questions.

And so I say her name one last time: Sadie Lefkowitz and Carolyn Black. May peace be upon her.

Sources

• NYC Municipal Archives Historical Vital Records, a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov
• New York vital record indexes, Ancestry.com
• US and New York Census records, Ancestry.com
• Chicago and other newspapers, Newspapers.com
• Chicago vital records and indexes, FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com
• Chicago city directories, Ancestry.com
• Social Security Death Index, Ancestry.com
• Florida death certificate, Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics
• Public Records Index, Ancestry.com
• Tenement photos, New York Public Library
• Tenement descriptions and photos, NYC Department of Records & Information Services, archives.nyc
• Military records, Ancestry.com
• Sanborn Maps, New York Public Library and Library of Congress
• Google Maps
• Surfside condominium collapse description, Wikipedia 

 

A Family Divided

 

“Something bad happened.” The eldest living descendant of Aaron Lefkowitz and Rose Holt Lefkowitz doesn’t know what tore the Lefkowitz family apart. Whatever happened was never discussed in their hearing. They don’t know why their ancestors changed their surnames. They don’t know why their Hungarian heritage was hidden. They never heard the name Lefkowitz. They don’t know why their Jewish ethnicity was not only hidden, but forbidden. They didn’t know there were estranged family members.

Only when the youngest child of the Lefkowitz couple suffered from dementia and started speaking Yiddish were the suspicions of Jewish heritage confirmed.

The family fractured about 1914. The Chicago Jewish Historical Society published an article about how the Jewish communities in Chicago reacted to the outbreak of World War I that year. Perspectives varied based on country of origin. Perhaps Aaron Lefkowitz had a very different perspective from his wife and children. However, it seems unlikely that a political difference of opinion could be enough to split the family. There must have been a personal matter.

Aaron and Rose Lefkowitz had eight children. All were born in Manhattan except Kalman, who was born in Brooklyn. Both Carrie and Jacob died in Manhattan. The eight children can be divided into four groups.

Died young:

• Carrie Lefkowitz was born 15 February 1887 and died 12 March 1887.
• Jacob Lefkowitz was born 16 July 1900 and died 24 May 1901.

The Kramer-Holt group:

• Joseph Lefkowitz was born 19 March 1888 and changed his name to Joseph Holt.
• Friedrich Lefkowitz was born 4 April 1891 and legally changed his name to Fred Mark Kramer.
• Kalman Lefkowitz was born 1 May 1896. He changed his name to Charles Lee Kramer and also went by Kelly.
• Lilly Lefkowitz was born 11 November 1904 and changed her name to Lillian Kramer.

Lefkowitz-Baruck:

• Betty Lefkowitz was born 28 November 1893. She changed her name to Flora and married John Baruck.

Lefkowitz-Black:

• Sarah Lefkowitz was born 22 March 1902 and went by Sadie and Sydell. She married Edward “Edwin Ira Bloch” Black and changed her first name to Carolyn.

 

The Lefkowitz family moved from Manhattan to Chicago about 1908. The 1910 census of Chicago showed the Lefkowitz family as a unit, except Joseph, who had left home and was boarding with another family.

 

Events of 1914

The Chicago city directories provide a timeline. The Lefkowitz family all lived together at 1621 Prairie Avenue when the 1914 Chicago city directory was compiled, probably in the spring. All the adult workers were listed at that address: Aaron, Flora, Frederick, Joseph and Kelly. The unity would not last another year.

 

Lefkowitz Names in the 1914 Chicago City Directory
Included are five family members living at 1621 Prairie Avenue:
Aaron, a tailor, working at 221 E 22nd
Flora, no occupation listed
Frederick M. a bookkeeper at 205 N Union Avenue
Jos. H, a commercial traveler
Kelly C, a clerk

 

 

In the fall of 1914, Flora and Fred made big changes in their lives. While the events are documented, the intents, causes and results are not known.

Fred Lefkowitz filed with the court for a name change. On September 21, he officially became Fred M. Kramer and obtained a marriage license under his new name. On the Saturday after Yom Kippur, Fred married a Gentile, a Swedish-American, in a civil ceremony officiated by a Judge of the Municipal Court. That same day, October 3, Flora Lefkowitz and John Baruck obtained a marriage license at the courthouse. They were married later that day by a Rabbi, in what was likely a religious ceremony.

The following year, the 1915 city directory showed a divided family. Joseph was found with the surname Holt, which was his mother’s maiden name. Charles had the surname Kramer and Fred was listed under both Kramer and Lefkowitz. The source of the Kramer name is unknown.

 

The Family Groups 

The family split into two or three fragments. The Kramer-Holt group was the largest. It consisted of Joseph Holt, Fred Kramer, Charles Kramer and Lillian Kramer. This group is the focus of my family research. Each of the Kramers left the Jewish faith, married spouses of Swedish descent and hid their Jewish ethnicity from their children. There was no knowledge imparted to descendants about sisters Flora or Sadie/Carolyn.

Flora Lefkowitz Baruck was not acknowledged by the Kramer-Holt group. She retained her Jewish identity and brought her children up in the Jewish faith. She named her father as Aaron Lefkowitz in her Social Security paperwork. The Kramer descendants were not aware of Flora before this research project.

Sadie Lefkowitz (Carolyn Black) is a puzzle. She may have chosen to simply remove herself from the conflict. She married within the Jewish faith, but had no children. While she married under the name Lefkowitz, her father was named as Aaron Kramer on her death certificate. She took the name Carolyn, which may have been based on Caroline, the name of her maternal grandmother. She appears to have been more aligned with the Kramer-Holt group, but that group did not acknowledge her or pass on any knowledge about her.

 

Death of Aaron Lefkowitz, 1916

The 1916 death of Aaron Lefkowitz from cancer provides some clues. His death certificate showed that he was divorced and lived at the same address as his son-in-law, John Baruck. Apparently Flora was caring for her father during his final days. Did the family fragment because of the parents’ divorce or perhaps due to some issue leading to the divorce? The cause may never be known.

Aaron’s will left the bulk of his estate to Flora, with smaller bequests to his underage daughters, Sadie and Lillie. His sons were not included, nor was his former wife. His death notice listed only daughter Flora Baruck as a survivor. While death notices were not free, the omission of all the other children seems an obvious slight. Aaron was buried in Waldheim Cemetery, Forest Park, Cook County, Illinois.

 

Death of Rose Holt Lefkowitz, 1920 

Rose Lefkowitz and daughters Sadie and Lillian were living together at the time of the 1920 census. Rose was working as a cook in a restaurant and Sadie was a stenographer. In November of that year, Rose died and was also buried in Waldheim Cemetery. It is not known if she and Aaron are buried together. No death notice was found for Rose.

After her mother’s death, Lillian Lefkowitz was raised by her brothers, rather than by a sister. Lillian chose to use the surname Kramer until her marriage.

Sadie was 18 and employed when her mother died. She married two years later, changed her name to Carolyn and disappeared from Kramer-Holt family knowledge. 

Joseph Holt was the first of the Kramer-Holt group to die, with tuberculosis taking his life in 1926. The obituary listed his survivors as Fred, Charles and Lillian Kramer. No mention was made of sisters Flora or Carolyn. That pattern continued with the deaths of Fred and Charles. Flora died in 1977, Lillian in 1992 and Carolyn in 1996. Flora’s obituary did not mention her two surviving sisters. Obituaries have not been located for Lillian and Carolyn.

In the 1930 census, Flora and Carolyn named their father’s birthplace as Hungary, while members of the Kramer group named their father’s birthplace as New York. The Kramer cover-up was complete and the next generation was kept ignorant of their Hungarian-Jewish ancestry.

 

Supporting DNA

One of the Kramer descendants has taken an Ancestry DNA test, as have some of the Baruck descendants. The match values are strong enough to support that the paper trail for the Kramer branch is accurate. Because of their Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, their DNA match is affected by endogamy, which is outside my area of expertise. Following are the Ancestry values and the relationships, according to the paper trail, for anyone who wishes to review and analyze them.

Sources

• NYC Municipal Archives Historical Vital Records, a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov
• New York vital record indexes, Ancestry.com
• US Census records, Ancestry.com
• Chicago and other newspapers, Newspapers.com
• Chicago vital records and indexes, FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com
• Chicago city directories, Ancestry.com
• Chicago Jewish Historical Society, chicagojewishhistory.org
• Illinois Wills and Probate Records collection, Ancestry.com
• California vital record indexes, Ancestry.com
• Florida death certificate, Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics
• Ancestry DNA

 

Down the Rabbit Hole

In 1917, war was raging around the world and the United States instituted a draft to raise a sizeable army to join the fighting. Three mysterious Chicago brothers appeared from nowhere to register. They claimed to have been born in boroughs of New York City, but there were no matching birth records. They should have been listed in earlier census records, but they were not, nor were their sister and parents. Their past was blank.

 

When one person is missing from records, it piques the interest of a genealogist. When the whole family is missing, it is an irresistible puzzle. I just could not look away. I soon found myself down a rabbit hole in the unfamiliar world of a fragmented Jewish-American family with Hungarian and German roots, living in the tenements of New York City.

 

A Question Starts a Quest

 

It was all the fault of a first cousin. I’ll call them CousinQ, as the adventure started with their question to me about Swedish roots. CousinQ wants to move to Sweden and asked me if they had a grandparent who had been born in Sweden. I had many notes from years of interviews with aunts, uncles and cousins, so was able to quickly respond that all of CousinQ’s grandparents had been born in the United States.

Later, I had an epiphany. CousinQ’s other parent, the one related to me by marriage, is still living. I’ll call them ParentQ. Did ParentQ have a grandparent born in Sweden that could be leveraged in some way? I added another generation to ParentQ’s Swedish line and discovered that indeed there were two grandparents born in Sweden. I shared the details with CousinQ to do with as they wished.

 

The Lost Family 

Having extended ParentQ’s Swedish line back a generation, I decided to similarly extend their German-Jewish line. But I could find no records prior to the 1917 draft registrations of Joseph Holt, Fred Kramer and Charles Kramer. My interview notes included the three brothers, sister Lillian Kramer and parents Aaron Kramer and Rose Holt Kramer. 

Extensive searching for the Kramer family was fruitless, so I turned to Rose Holt as the most unique name. Was Holt her maiden name, as believed, or was it a name from a prior marriage? The only marriage found in indexes was for a Rosa Holt and a man named Aron Lefkovits. I ignored that marriage through several hours of searching. Finally I decided to explore the possibility and so remove the record from consideration.

Image of a New York City Marriage Return dated 21 January 1885.
It was the first marriage for both parties.
The reverse shows that the marriage was performed by an alderman.
The groom signed his name as Aron Lefkovits.
He was a tailor, living at 120 Read [possibly Reade or Ridge] St.
He would be 23 on his next birthday and was born in Hungary to 
Natal Lefkovits and Eva Lefkovits, which was his mother's maiden name.
The bride signed her name as Rosa Holt.
She was living at 93 Sheriff St. and would be 20 on her next birthday.
She was born in New York City to Frederick Holt and Caroline Jacoby.

  

When I looked at the Lefkowitz family in census records, it was a stunning match. The 1905 census of Manhattan listed the expected first names of the parents and children and added two more daughters, Flora and Sadie. All the family members had been born in New York, except Aaron, who had been born in Hungary. Could proof be found that this was the right family? 

The records of Fred Kramer provided the first proof. He had petitioned the court for a name change from Friedrich Lefkowitz to Fred M. Kramer. His 1914 court filing was mentioned, along with others, in a Chicago newspaper. His original New York birth certificate was changed years later to reflect the court-ordered name change. 

 

 

Image of a New York City Birth Certificate dated 18 April 1891.
The original information was for a white male named Friedrich Lefkowitz, 
born 4 April 1891, at 100 Cannon St.
His father was 28-year-old tailor Aron Lefkowitz, born in Hungary.
His mother was 25-year-old Rosa Holdt. 
Her birthplace reads Hungary, which was an error by the midwife. 
Rosa had two previous children, with two of the three living.
The certificate was altered on 3 December 1952. 
The name of the child was changed to Fred M. Kramer, 
based on a court order of 21 September 1914.

There is more to the story. Future posts will explore the history of the Lefkowitz and Holt families in an attempt to assure the discoveries remain forever accessible to my cousins and their cousins.

Sources
    • NYC Municipal Archives Historical Vital Records, a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov
    • New York vital record indexes, Ancestry.com
    • Draft Registration Cards, Ancestry.com
    • US Census records, Ancestry.com
    • Chicago newspapers, Newspapers.com
    • Chicago vital records and indexes, FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com
    • Swedish-American church records, Ancestry.com
    • Swedish emigration and church records, ArkivDigital.se and Riksarkivet.se

Untangling Båtsman Johan Duhan, 52 Ancestors

Mea Culpa

When I first researched my 5th great-grandfather, Johan Duhan, the information just didn't feel right. The pieces of the puzzle weren't quite comfortable. Yet I shared the results in my online family trees and on my web site. That information was copied by other people into their trees. My conclusions were wrong and the errors will likely survive online forever. I apologize to any and all who copied my erroneous conclusions.

When Johan became a sailor in the Swedish Navy, he also received a new surname -- the same military name as the båtsman before him and the one after him. The Duhan (Duån) surname was assigned to the Nybble rote, rather than to the person (see cultural background). This led to the inability to identify the men and relationships within the church records. This post is intended as an apology and also a reference to help prevent cousins (and not cousins) from having to duplicate my work.

When I first completed my research on the Båtsman Johan Duhan, there were three birth years, four wives and four families. Later Swedish records were very exact when recording birth dates, but the records of the 1700s were vague. The parish of Vårdinge has many gaps in the church records and I have not found any pertinent probate records. I was left with missing puzzle pieces. Did one man have four wives or did four men have one wife each? Or was there some other explanation for the discrepancies in the life of Johan Duhan?

The military records were not indexed, so I put them on the bottom of my to do list, where they stayed for over ten years. That was my mistake. In contrast to some sparse Swedish military records, these specific båtsmän lists were a wonderful resource which provided clarity.

For the casual reader, the simple answer was that there were two men and five wives. For cousins, let's dig into several men named Duhan, starting with the man who was my ancestor and ending with a surprise from the records.

Here are quick links to each man:

Jacob Jånsson Duhan (1697-1744)

Johan Johansson Duhan (1698-1759)

Johan Gustafsson Duan (1719-1758)

Johan Larsson Duhan (1720-1788)

Johan Duhan (1722-1722)

Anders Ersson Duhan (1746-1783)

Eric Duhan (1766-179x)

 

Johan Larsson Duhan (1720-1788)

Why would a 40-year-old family man lie about his age to join the military during a time of war? The Seven Years' War was raging around the world in 1759, but Johan Larsson must have thought that the benefits would outweigh the risks. Johan had suffered the loss of two children, a wife and possibly an unborn child, all within five years. It appears that the piece of land where he farmed at Lilla Bysta was not a great place to raise a family. It was a small piece of land on a shore of Southern Lake Yngern, in Stockholm County, and may have had depleted or poor soil. Johan lived the hard life of a crofter, leasing his small farm through his labor.

 

Marriage One

There is no known surviving record of Johan's birth or of his marriage to Brita Pehrsdotter. The couple first appeared in the church records of Turinge parish with the birth of a stillborn son in 1750.

• Daughter Anna arrived on 21 June 1751. Her fate is unknown after appearing with her father on the tax list for 1787.
• Baby Catharina followed in 1754 and died at three months old.

Brita Pehrsdotter died in 1755. The cause was childbirth, though a baby was not recorded at the same time, probably dying unborn with Brita. 

 

Marriage Two and Becoming a Båtsman

Johan remarried to Kerstin Olofsdotter on 11 November 1756. 

• Baby Anders was born a year later, on 31 October 1757.

In September, 1758, the Nybble båtsman, named Johan Duhan, died while assigned to the Naval facility at Karlskrona. Being a sailor on a Naval vessel was probably safer than being in the Army, so Johan Larsson bravely accepted the vacant position. It is possible that he was related to and recommended by another båtsman who had previously moved between the two parishes.

The Nybble (Nibble/Nyble) båtsman of Vårdinge (alias Våhlinge) served in position 128 of the Första (First) Södermanlands Båtsmanskompani, which was formed from parishes in Stockholm County. The Duhan (Duån) position was an Ordinarie båtsman, as opposed to a reserve båtsman. 

Johan moved his wife and two children about seven miles southwest across the parish line and into the Nybble Båtsmans Torp. He was approved by the Navy on 31 March 1759. From that time his name was recorded in the Navy rolls as Jån Larsson Duån and in the church records as Johan Duhan.

The Navy recorded his enlistment age as 36, with a birthplace of Turinge parish. At that time, a new recruit could be no older than 36. If this was an accurate age, his birthdate would have been 1722-1723. He was recorded in the clerical survey of 1760 as born in 1720, which would have made him about 40 years of age, older than in the Navy records. He had no reason to lie to the minister about his age, but certainly had a need to lie to the Navy. A later tax record also listed his birth year as 1720.

Johan spent time training on Naval vessels and may have sailed into battle, as the Swedish Navy sought to maintain dominance during the war. A båtsman was the lowest rank in the Navy. They were somewhat like modern reservists, being rotated in and out of the Karlskrona Navy facility at the southern end of Sweden. The full-time Navy members were skilled, where the båtsmän were unskilled, doing basic tasks on the ship. 

If you think about an 18th-century warship, you likely picture several masts, many sails and a multitude of cannon ports along the sides. The web site for a replica of a 1700's ship, Gotheborg of Sweden, has a lovely video made by drone, as well as information on crew assignments. The work of the modern deckhands is similar to that of a båtsman: cleaning, keeping watch, manning the anchor and handling the complex sails and rigging. The båtsmän also might operate the cannons. The records also note that Johan was a wagon maker, or cartwright, and had served at sea for at least six months by the time of his discharge.

When Johan was not away for military duties, he worked the plot of land assigned to him. Satellite views of the Nibble farm, just east of the town of Gnesta, reveal several large fields. It may have been a healthier environment, but the family continued to experience a high death rate:

• Anders, who had been born in 1757,  died in 1760, at age 3.
• Another baby named Catharina was born in 1760 and died 4 months later in 1761.
• Johan, born 29 November 1762, grew to adulthood and took the name Johan Wolen (Volen/Volin).
• Eric was born in 1765 and died 7 months later in 1766.
• Stina was born 31 March 1768. Her fate is unknown, but she possibly died young, about 1777.
• Elisabeth was born in 1771 and died in 1776.

Kerstin Olofsdotter died in 1774, again widowing Johan and leaving him with young children.

 

Household survey for Johan Larsson Duhan, with his second wife, some of his children and two lodgers who are blacked out

 

Marriage Three

Though the war had ended in 1762, Johan still had military duties and still needed a wife. At about age 55, he married for a third time. On 9 January 1775, he married Catharina Engelbrechtsdotter, who was about half his age. While I wonder at the lack of wisdom, without that marriage, I would not exist. Catharina brought to the marriage her illegitimate daughter, Anna Lisa, born 29 April 1771, in Grangärde parish, Kopparberg/Dalarna county. The couple had several more children:

• Another baby named Catharina was born 28 March 1778. Her fate is unknown.
• Maria was born in 1781 and died about 1781.
• Another baby named Maria was born in 1782 and died 39 weeks later in 1783.
• Anders was born 27 February 1784. He took the name Anders Jånsson and is my 4th great-grandfather.
• Carl was born in 1788 and died in 1790 at age 2.

After 22 years of service, Johan Larsson Duhan was recorded as being too old and frail to fulfill his duties. He was discharged from his båtsman position on 3 February 1781, choosing to retain his military name. He and his family had to move out of the båtsman cottage.

While there should be one or more household survey records showing where the family lived, those records are silent. The family moved to or visited the neighboring parish of Frustuna, where the first baby Maria was christened in 1781. 

By the beginning of 1782, they had returned to Vårdinge parish and were living on church property, as reflected in the tax records. The subsequent birth and death records referred to Johan as kyrko vaktaren, church watchman or guard, a title he retained until his death on 15 May 1788. His death record listed his age as 71, which would indicate a birthdate in 1716-1717. While this is a third option for a birthdate, the information was not provided by him, so is the least likely of the possible dates.

There is one record that cannot be reconciled. A one-year-old "son son" or grandson died at the Nybble Båtsmans Torp in 1776. The birth records for 1775 include only one birth, so there is a gap in the records. The child could have been the grandson of a lodger, an illegitimate son of the eldest known son, a son of an unknown older son, or an error in the church books. The tax records do not add clarity.

Johan Larsson Duhan had three wives, fourteen known children and one step-daughter. Three of his children lived to adulthood: Anna (1751-unknown), Johan Wolen (1762-1815) and Anders Jånsson (1784-1846). The fate of two children is unknown: Stina (1768-unknown) and Catharina (1778-unknown).

 

Household survey for Johan Larsson Duhan, with his third wife, some of his children and two later båtsmän, Anders Duhan and Eric Duhan.

 

Johan was followed by Anders Ersson Duhan (1746-1783), who served only a short time, dying in Karlskrona in 1783. 

The position was taken over by Eric Duhan, whose original name is unknown. Eric was born in 1766 and died in Finland in the 1790s. That death in Finland somehow was recorded in my tree as Johan's birth location, an error which must be ignored.

 

Johan Gustafsson Duhan (1719-1758)

The death of Johan Gustafsson Duhan vacated the båtsman position for Johan Larsson. The information in both the church records and the Navy records is sparse for Johan Gustafsson Duhan and his family. The records show he was born about 1719 and was approved as the Nybble båtsman  in 1748. 

Johan Gustafsson married Anna Olofsdotter by 1744. The couple lived at Uhsta, in Vårdinge parish. Three children were born to the couple: Giosta/Gustaf (1744-1824), Kierstin (1746-1789) and Olof (1749-unknown). Anna Olofsdotter died about 1752.

 

Household survey for Johan Gustafsson Duhan, with his first wife and two of his children.

 

Johan, with the military name Duhan, married second to Helena Andersdotter on 11 November 1753. She was from Löfsta in neighboring Vagnhärad parish, where banns were also called. Two children were born to the couple: Anders (1754-unknown) and Erik (1757-unknown). 

Johan Gustafsson Duhan was sent to the Karlskrona Naval facility about 1757 or 1758, during the Seven Years' War, which had started in 1756. He died on 19 September 1758, while assigned to Karlskrona.

His death is not noted in the church records of Vårdinge, which originally led to my conclusion that Johan Gustafsson Duhan and Johan Larsson Duhan were the same man. 

Was there a relationship to earlier men with the name Duhan?

 

Johan Duhan (May 1722-June 1722)

The infant son of båtsman Duhan of Vårdinge parish has been documented as born in 1722, living and becoming one of the båtsman previously discussed. However, the 1722 death record shows clearly that he did not survive. His birth and death records have his father's first name written first as Johan and later written over as Jacob. His mother was named as Ingr Svensdotter. The marriages in the Vårdinge records were puzzling:

• Johan Duhan of Nybble Båtsmanstorp married in Vårdinge parish to Inger Svensdotter on 28 December 1718.

• Johan Duhan of Jordsberg [Jordberg] in Vagnhärad married in Vårdinge parish to Ingeborg Månsdotter on 8 November 1724.

 

Johan Johansson Duhan of Vagnhärad Parish (1698-1759)

The Vårdinge records between 1718 and 1725 confused Jacob Duhan of Vårdinge parish with Johan Duhan of Vagnhärad parish. The parish of Vagnhärad is just south of Vårdinge, but is in Södermanland County, rather than Stockholm County. The Naval company is different, so there was not a risk of duplicate surnames within a single company. The rote name was Husby (Und. Fredriksdal) and the position was number 119 in Andra (other) Södermanlands Båtsmans-Kompani.

Johan Johansson was born in Roslagen (Uppland) in 1698, and assumed the båtsman position in 1720, at age 21. He was shown in most church records as living at Duhanstorp. He had served 20 years by 1740, and was not listed on a 1744 muster roll. The position was filled by someone else in 1747.

Johan Duhan of Jordsberg [Jordberg] in Vagnhärad parish married in Vårdinge parish to Ingeborg Månsdotter on 8 November 1724. She was the widow of båtsman Anders Olofsson Nyman of Mölnebo.

Johan Johansson Duhan died at the age of 61, on 17 March 1759. No children were found.

 

Jacob Jånsson Duhan (1697-1744)

Jacob Jånsson Duhan was the Nybble båtsman from 1717 to 1744. He was born about 1697 in Uppland.

He was married twice, but the first marriage record is under the name of Johan, as he was confused with båtsman Johan Johansson Duhan, from Vagnhärad parish. The record states that Johan [sic] Duhan of Nybble Båtsmanstorp married in Vårdinge parish to Inger Svensdotter on 28 December 1718. 

With Ingrid Svensdotter, three children were born, with only one daughter known to survive.

• Son Johan was born 11 May 1722 at Nybble Båtsmans stugan and died in late June. In both records the father's name was written as Johan, but written over as Jacob.

• Daughter Anna (Annika) was born in 1723 and disappeared from the church records between 1734 and 1735. It is likely that she died.

• Daughter Maria (Maja) was born on 4 November 1726.  She left the household between 1742 and 1744, based on the examination records.

• Ingrid Svensdotter died 28 December 1739 at age 56.  

 

A Scandalous Death at Nybble Båtsmanstorp

The widowed Jacob married Elisabet (Lisken) Laxberg on 19 October 1740. The marriage was documented at Maria Magdelena in Stockholm City.  

In late 1744, Lisken killed Jacob. Their last communion was noted as 30 November 1744, followed by the Latin notation in the communion records:

"ab uxore sua trucidatus"

"murdered by his wife"

The Navy muster roll of 8 February 1745, documents that Jacob Duhan had served 28 years. There is a final note:

"Ihjälslagen af thes hustru förledet åhr, Roten vacant"

"Killed by his wife last year, the position vacant"

The kind person at Anbytarforum who translated this comment stated that "Ihjälslagen" can also be used in the more narrow meaning "beaten to death".

The mantals tax record for 1746 notes: "man and wife dead" and "vacant".  This implies that Lisken had died or was executed by the time the tax list was created in late 1745. Court records, if they still exist, would reveal more details.

Daughter Maria Jacobsdotter Duhan married in Vårdinge on 23 September 1759, to a church organist from Nyköping named Carl Moberg. Maria used several surnames throughout her adult life, including the Duhan military name. The couple lived in several parishes before her death in Hölö parish in 1781. Her probate listed four minor sons.

 

Research Notes

Some of the military records are hard to read. If you are a Duhan descendant who is good at reading 18th-century Swedish handwriting, please check the records for hints that I missed.

There are many minor gaps in the Vårdinge parish records, as well as sporadic entries in the household examinations. Major gaps include:

• Death records: 1742-1757
• Birth records: 1701-1703
• Marriage records: no large gaps
• Household examinations: 1719-1725,1754-1759,1765-1780 

Orientation

The Vårdinge parish church is about 40 miles southwest of the city of Stockholm, near the city of Gnesta, in the purple area of the map.

 

Johan Larsson Duhan is marked in my grandfather's tree with the star.

 

Sources

• Mantals tax records: Turinge, Vårdinge

• Church records:

• Stockholm county and city: Turinge, Vårdinge, Ytterjärna, Överjärna, Klara, Värmdö, Nacka, Danvik-Sicklaö, Maria Magdalena

• Södermanland county: Hölö, Vagnhärad, Frustuna, Kattnäs, Björnlunda, Nyköpings Alla Helgona

• Kopparberg/Dalarna county: Grangärde, Vika

• Navy records:

• Flottans arkiv, Amiralitetskollegium, sjömilitiekontoret. 2.0

• Rullor flottan 1635-1915

• Lieutenant Colonel Claes Grill, Statistiskt sammandrag af svenska indelningsverket (Statistical Summary of the Swedish Allotment System)

• Lantmateriet.se Historical Maps

• Google Translate

• Google Maps

• Wikipedia articles on the Seven Years' War (1756-1763)

• Anbytarforum at rotter.se

• Website of Hans Högman

• Email from Hans Högman clarifying age ranges for military service

• Web site for sailing ship Gotheborg of Sweden

 

Unlucky Soldier Thirteen, 52 Ancestors

 

Halloween Night, 2022

Settling in for a spooky night, someone started a horror movie -- a genre I don't like. Instead I resumed my research project on a family of soldiers. Little did I know that by the end of the evening I would stumble over a real-life horror story in the church records of Sweden.

The Life of Anders Pehrsson Sik

Anders was born on 28 March 1783, in the parish of Stora Malm, Södermanland, Sweden. He was the youngest child of crofter Pehr Pehrsson and his second wife, Brita Ericsdotter, who lived at a farm named Horskiärr. Anders and his three older brothers would all become allotment soldiers (see cultural background), and their youngest sister would marry a soldier. Only their oldest half-sister would avoid the military life. I had followed each of the older children throughout their lives. That night it was time to follow the youngest.

The children all left home to become apprentices or to find jobs when they were between the ages of 12 and 17.  With several children dying young, Anders was 5 years younger than Greta and his brothers were older by 8 to 14 years. He probably grew up not really knowing his brothers, but admiring them. When he was 7, his oldest brother, Eric, become a soldier at age 21.

Eric Pehrsson took the position of soldier 5, with the military name Eric Snack. He replaced a soldier who had died, probably in Finland, during a war between Sweden and Russia. When Eric took the position, Anders and his parents moved into his soldier torp along with him.

Eric is not recorded in the church records for a few years, so he was probably away on military duty, though the war had ended. His family must have enjoyed the benefits of the position in his absence. Pehr would no longer have to pay for his croft through his labor. He would instead have worked the fields that accompanied the soldier torp and may have assisted the farmers, as Eric would have done. Anders would have worked with his father.

Eric returned with lungsot, consumption, but married and had a son. Anders and his parents moved out about the time the baby was born, in 1795. At age 12, Anders was old enough to become an apprentice and he spent the next few years moving between his parents and a shoemaker. He watched two more older brothers become soldiers. In 1797, Carl became soldier 107, with the surname Hjelte, moving to a neighboring parish. Jonas became soldier 22, in 1798, with the surname Flink.

Eric Pehrsson Snack died in 1800, when 17-year-old Anders was too young to take over the rote. But the following year he had the opportunity to follow his brothers into the military. The clerical survey for Mostugan reported that the shoemaker's worker, Anders Pehrsson, born in 1783, came from the home of soldier 5 by 1798, and left in 1801, with the name Anders Sik. He had turned 18 on March 28, and was named as a soldier recruit on the same day. That coordination was probably prearranged.

Using the Central Soldier Register to look up Anders Sik, from Stora Malm parish, I learned that he served the Forssjöqvarn rote and his soldier number was 13. Had I been superstitious, I would have stopped the moment I saw that number. No good could possibly come from following the number 13 on Halloween night. However, I pressed on to learn about his life.

Anders Pehrsson Sik married Stina Pehrsdotter on 5 December 1801, soon after he was approved by the military as a soldier. She was 11 years older and had worked as a cook at nearby Ericsberg Palace, so he probably married her for her skills in the kitchen. The couple never had children, instead fostering a couple of boys. The military records show that he was a shoemaker, so he may have continued his training and eventually taken the boys as apprentices.

Sweden entered the Napoleonic wars in 1805. Just before that, Anders' sister Greta married soldier 12, a widower named Eric Fast. The three brothers and their brother-in-law were all serving in the same company. Their regiment served in Pomerania between about 1805 and September, 1807, when Sweden surrendered. Anders' brother, Carl Pehrsson Heltje, and brother-in-law, Eric Fast, had both been discharged before June of 1807.

Anders Pehrsson Sik and his brother Jonas Pehrsson Flink, my ancestor, were in Pomerania as the Swedish military fought the French and her allies for control. Their Södermanland battalion fought on the east side, the left flank as described on the page about the Great Sortie of Stralsund.  On 20 June 1807, their company conducted a muster at Greifswald, south of Stralsund. The surviving men were documented, including Anders and Jonas. At the end of July, the Swedish Army was pushed back north to Stralsund, where they endured a month-long siege by the French. Eventually the surviving troops withdrew to the island of Rügen.

Jonas died on 23 August, the day before Stralsund was surrendered and two weeks before Rügen was surrendered. His death location and details are unknown, but I hope that Anders was by his side at the end. As Anders retreated to Sweden with the rest of the troops, his heart would have been heavy. He would have had to go home and share the sad news with his elderly father, his siblings, and Jonas' wife and three young children.

Anders Pehrsson Sik was the last man in his immediate family to serve as a soldier after 1807. He appears to have served additional deployments throughout the era of the Napoleonic Wars, as there are gaps in the church records. Sweden entered a period of peace when Napoleon was defeated for the second time, at the end of 1815. Anders would have settled into a more normal life, attending occasional  military musters, farming and possibly working as a shoemaker or cobbler. I followed Anders and his wife through several books of clerical surveys. I was surprised that he continued as a soldier, especially considering his wartime service.

The Death of Anders Pehrsson Sik

The clerical survey book for 1826-1828 was puzzling. The couple were crossed out and a new soldier was listed for the rote, starting in 1828. There was nothing in the moving out columns. Death would usually be indicated by a cross next to the name and the word död (dead) with a date. The far right column, used for notes, had the couple bracketed together, along with a note that was small and a bit hard to read. I failed to take the time to read and translate that note. I saw that it referenced the death book, so opened that first, to my regret.

The note, now that I understand it, would have been a caution to not read the death book late at night.

Kropps Brådligheter och Lefnads Omständigheter

1826-11-09, först mördade och sedan upbrännde tillika med stugubyggningen, banemannen se dödboken för 1826-11-09

Translated:

[Header] Fragility of Body and Circumstances of Life

1826-11-09, first murdered and then burned together with the cottage building, [for] the murderers see death book for 1826-11-09

Before reading the details, what about the killers? Within three weeks, the murderers were identified as soldier 28, Eric Lind, and farmhand Carl Sundin, a newly recruited soldier. Their intent had been to steal from the sleeping Sik family, but the plan went very wrong when the couple woke up. After killing the couple, the men took a pocket watch, a pewter cup, a coat, a pair of trousers and 25 riksdaler and 32 skilling in cash (about $240 in 2015). They then set the cabin on fire to destroy the evidence. They were tried and sentenced within five months. Exactly one year after the murder, the pair were publicly executed near the place where they murdered the couple.  

The death book (Stora Malm F:2 Image 34) tells some gory details of both the murder and the executions. If you are squeamish, you may want to stop right here. The images conjured by these descriptions haunted my sleep and stayed with me for a few days. 

There are three separate notations, as seen in the image below. Any errors in transcription or translation are mine.

Soldaten Anders Sik och hans hustru Stina Pehrsdotter vid no 13 om morgonen den 9de Nov fanns deras stugubygg, nad nedbrännd och deras squeletter liggande på stugagolvet. Medelst skedd undersökning af provincial Läkaren Doctor Martin befanns marker efter yxhugg i axelbenet på Sik och uti halskotoma på hustru, hvaraf anledning att bofvar först mördat dem, och derefter sändteld på byggningen, för att dölja ogjemingen.

Translated:

The soldier Anders Sik and his wife Stina Pehrsdotter, living at number 13. On the morning of the 9th of November, their cabin was found burnt down and their skeletons lying on the cabin floor. Through an examination by the provincial doctor, Doctor Martin, marks from an ax cut were found in the shoulder bone of Sik and in the cervical vertebrae of the wife, which is why the thugs first murdered them, and then set fire to the building, to hide the crime.

Second:

Dessas brände ben återfunnas i en gift, som uplogs d. 26 Oct 1847.

betygar P.U. Noren

Translated:

Their burnt bones were found in a grave, which was exhumed on 26 Oct 1847.

attest P.U. Noren

Third:

Soldaten No 28 för Walla rote Eric Lind och recryton [rekryten], drängen i Walla, Carl Sundin blefvo förvunne att hafva begått dessa nidings jemingar, och desfore dömde att mista högra händerne, halshuggas och steglas. De ense qvarades den 9 November 1827.

Translated:

The soldier No. 28 for Walla rote, Eric Lind, and the recruit, a farmhand in Walla, Carl Sundin, were found guilty of having committed these crimes, and therefore sentenced to lose their right hands, beheaded and quartered. The same was held on 9 November 1827.

Death record for Anders Sik and wife Stina Pehrsdotter
Stora Malm, Södermanland, Book F:2 Image 34

The location of this tragedy was about 90 miles southwest of the city of Stockholm, near the city of Katrineholm, in the purple area of the map.

 

Sources

• Church records for birth, death, marriage, clerical survey, moving in and out: Stora Malm, Lunda
• Stora Malm Mantals tax records
• Oppunda häradsrätt probate records
• Generalmönsterrullor - Södermanlands regemente, Livkompaniet (1789 through 1830)
• Central Soldier Register
• Rotter.se Avrättade (Roots Database of Executions)
• Google Translate
• Google Maps
• Wikipedia
• Historical Currency Converter
  
• Lantmateriet.se Historical Maps
• Three part blog series clarifying Jonas Pehrsson Flink (part one, part two, part three)