The Ancestor Puzzle

Swedes and Americans at Tyresbo, Rumskulla meeting for the first time Sept. 2024

Swedish relatives adding to 21 foot long family tree that I brought with me.

Two years ago, with the help of a Swedish genealogist, Christine Bayne, I was able to locate and write letters to surviving relatives in Sweden. I told them about my quest and that I wanted to meet them. I immediately received welcoming and excited letters and emails from about 10 of them. My cousin Birgir Svensson wrote, “I can inform you that we are 34 cousins who meet every 15 years or so. Our ages range from 67 to 93 and most of us are still living. My brother Yngve Svensson is one of the few who still live in Rumskulla today. He lives in Hamra, Rumskulla. He plans to coordinate your visit....So, Carol, I think you will have a great welcome home to Rumskulla when you arrive.”

And we did have quite the welcome home! We had a day long reunion in Rumskulla, a small town in rural south-central Sweden in a region called Småland. We, 70 some odd Americans and Swedes shared a meal and stories about our families and our ancestry and added names and information to a 21-foot-long family tree I printed up and brought with me. For the rest of the week, we were guided by our Swedish cousins to family landmarks in the area, including to the family farms, houses, our church, cemetery, places of births, weddings and a pile of rocks deep in a desolate forest on a hill that had been the last home in Sweden of one of my great grandmothers.

My great, great grandfather, Lars Johan Samuelsson and three of his siblings, Gustaf, Carl and Stina and their families left Sweden in the 1860’s, leaving behind their mother and 2 sisters. The Swedes we met were mostly descendants of one of these sisters. Apparently, Lars Johan and his brothers Gustaf and Carl all chose to change their name from Samuelsson to Cedarholm at some point on their journey. There is no record of them using this name in Sweden. There is a record of them using this name in Illinois, however it was spelled Söderholm. The 1870 census in Kansas is the first time they use the name spelled Cedarholm. My guess is that they wanted a name that was more unique and yet still sounded Swedish and perhaps descriptive of where they came from.

As with any decision to leave your home country, they left out of desperation. Poverty, crop failures, famine, and religious and class oppression had created an unbearably difficult life for many Swedes. They saw America as a place of hope and a place to prosper and be free from the physical hardships and oppressive constraints of Swedish society. 1.3 million Swedes, about 20% of the population of Sweden, left for America beginning in the 1840’s, increasing significantly after the American civil war and continuing until the early 1900’s. The Homestead Act, signed into law by President Lincoln in 1862, was a main draw for many immigrants to travel to America. The act allowed any adult who was or intended to become a citizen to claim 160 acres of public land with the only condition being that they live on and work the land for at least five years.

Lars Johan’s siblings and their families, Gustaf, Carl and Stina had all claimed land in Fremont, Kansas by 1870. Lars Johan, however, had settled in a small town in Illinois, New Windsor, working as a carpenter. When his wife died after the stillborn birth of her 10th child in 1879, leaving him with 7 children, he moved them all to Kansas to get support from his siblings. He and his children were taken in by his siblings and they did prosper, although it took a few generations and a lot of hard work.

Meanwhile Lars’ Swedish sisters who stayed behind, Anna Greta and Sara and their families struggled and survived through the difficult period of the mid 1800’s and beyond. The 20th century brought economic change, land reform, industrialization, and social, religious and political reforms which gradually brought a more comfortable life to our ancestors, especially after World War II. Today Swedes enjoy a very good standard of living with many social and economic supports including paid childcare leave, health insurance, free education through university, a retirement pension and many more.

And so, here we were. Back together. The American and Swedish descendants of my great, great, great grandfather and grandmother meeting together for the first time in health and prosperity after a 158-yearlong separation.

To meet the actual human beings who are my ancestors’ descendants in Sweden, on the land where they came from and to hear their stories from their mouths was breathtaking for me. It was the next best thing to going back in time and being in the presence of these ancestors. My cousins answered many of my questions about what happened and why. Experiencing the people, the landscape, and the places of historical importance to my family in person along with my American family and cousins was enormously meaningful to me. I only wish my father had been with us.

After our week in Rumskulla, my American cousins and family returned home, but Carl and I traveled around Sweden for another 3 weeks. The other important place I needed to visit to find a few more pieces of the puzzle was Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden on the west coast directly east of Scotland across the North Sea. This was the city from which most emigrants left Sweden. I wanted to see the train station, the streets and the dock where my family travelled through on their journey to the United States. Walking the cobblestones where they would have walked, standing on the old stone wharf where they waited to board the ship, looking out across the same watery expanse they would have looked out on, I could feel and imagine their presence.

I have been researching my family for over 20 years. Thanks to valuable research shared by one of my dad’s cousins, visits to the Kansas town where my Swedish emigrant family settled, Ancestry.com, a Swedish genealogist and now Swedish cousins in Sweden the puzzle is close to complete. There are still missing pieces and will always be, which is frustrating, but short of time travel back to 1866, we can only guess. But I will continue to search for those pieces, probably as long as I can. Still, it has been deeply satisfying to have come this far.

I want to thank my immediate family for being part of this reunion and to my cousins and their children and partners who participated in and supported this memorable event! Our grandfathers who were brothers would have been so proud and were certainly there in spirit. I also want to thank all of my many Swedish cousins for being so enthusiastic from the very beginning and working so hard to organize the Swedish end of things and for being so loving, welcoming, and generous with your time and continually answering our endless questions. I'm looking forward to our next reunion! In Kansas maybe?

Tack så mycket och mycket kärlek! Carol Cedarholm

Cedarholm voyage part 1, Rumskulla to Gothenburg by train, Gothenburg to Hull by boat, Hull to Liverpool by train.

The Cedarholms complete journey from Rumskulla to Kansas. They took a boat from Liverpool to New York, train to Chicago, another train to Swedona, Illinois and another train and perhaps wagon and walking to Fremont, Kansas.

House belonging to family in Skattergård.

Family cattle farm still in operation after 8 generations.

Kalleberg where my great, great grandfather Lars Johan was born.

Rumskulla Lutheran church where the family was and are members with the Americans and Swedes in front.

Oxhagen, site of the last home where my great, grandmother, Emma Hagberg lived before emigrating with her parents and two sisters.

American cousins and Swedish cousins, Lori Cedarholm Hilmer, Irene Lundell, Yvonne, Lundell, me, Sara Cedarholm Wrablica, and Ella Cedarholm, descendents of our great, grandmother, Emma Hagberg at Yvonne's home in Eskjo after a delicious dinner prepared by Yvonne and Irene.

Having fika with my cousins Yngve and Ingred at their home in Hamra. Photo of Yngve's father as a child and his siblings in the yard of this very same house.