Swedish Relatives Part I

Like most Americans, I come from a family of immigrants.  I grew up knowing that one part of my family's story was set long ago in Sweden, however I wasn't ever familiar with the details of that story.  But I started to grow curious about researching my Swedish heritage shortly after I arrived.

It started one day as I was sitting on the couch in my flat in Gothenburg.  Suddenly I realized that it was possible that my ancestors lived somewhere quite near to where I live now, and that if that was so it would be a shame not to visit that place.  I called and asked my mother for my great-grandmother's maiden name even though I doubted that she would know it or that her name would lead to any useful information.  To my surprise, I was wrong on both counts.

Klas and Sofia Welin, my great great grandparents

My mother was able to tell me "Nana's" maiden name without even looking it up: Welin.  She was born Hulda Marie Welin, an American-born daughter of Swedish immigrant parents.  I put her name in a Google search and found a site with extensive family tree information that included a page just for her with the locations and dates of her birth, death, and marriage, as well as links to pages for her parents, children, and spouse.  Following these links I found an extensive network of family relations; some of the names were familiar to me from stories I'd heard as a child, but most of them I'd never heard before.  The family tree went as far back as the grandparents of my great-grandmother, and included a long list of cousins and aunts and uncles.

 It was pure luck to find such extensive and well-organized information on a public site; as I have since learned, there's no small amount of work involved in genealogy research, and I doubt I'd have been willing to get involved in this investigation if I'd had to do it all from scratch.  A Swedish friend put me in contact with his grandmother who does genealogy research as a hobby, and with her help I located two living relatives: Sven and Åke, the sons of my great-grandmother's first cousin.  That makes them my second cousins twice removed, but perhaps a diagram makes it easier to understand how I'm related to these fellows:

Second Cousins, twice removed

 It was exciting to know that I had living relatives in Sweden, but a bit intimidating to actually make contact with them.  I wasn't sure what to say, or how they'd react to being contacted by a stranger.  I finally wrote a letter that introduced myself and explained who I am (including a copy of the chart above), and suggested we meet in the last week of October when I had some vacation time and planned to be in their part of the country anyway.

It took some time before I heard back and I almost gave up hope of a positive response, but then one evening in late-October I got a phone call from Åke's wife's neice, Kajsa.  She said the brothers were curious to meet me and that they didn't speak English but she could assist with translation.

At that point I had to ask myself what I was really looking for in this interaction.  I came up with this approximation: I was seeking was a better understanding of who I am, some sense of what my family was like before it was transplanted and redefined as American, and a stronger feeling of connection and belonging to the country I currently make my home in.  I recognize that this is beyond what could be expected to result from an initial meeting with strangers, even if we do share DNA.  So I kept it simple by reigning in my expectations and gathering some family photos.

Hulda Marie Welin (Hryse) - my nana

Hulda Marie Welin (Hryse) and me

John Eugene Hryse (grandpa) and Alexis John Hryse (dad)

John Eugene Hryse

John Eugene Hryse