Category Archives: Swedish research

Swedish research

Peter Prytz & Cecilia Petersdotter

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This is the last of the Swedish family for a bit.

Peter Prytz was a well-to-do resident of Dalby, Skane, Sweden. He was the innkeeper of the Dalby Inn, which is one of the oldest inns in existence in Sweden today. The original inn opened in medieval times, but the “modern” building dates “only” from the 1600’s.

Peter was born about 1664 and might be the son of one Jonas Prytz, said to have been born about 1633. The occupation of this Jonas was a “rider.” Exactly what a rider did, I am not sure. He might have been in a military unit on patrol.

Peter Prytz married Cecilia Petersdotter on 18 March 1700 in Dalby, Skane, Sweden. Cecilia was born about 1662, but I have not found any information on her parentage or siblings.

Peter was buried at the Dalby Church on 23 June 1728. Cecilia was buried next to him on 29 March 1732. It is said that there gravestone still exists, but that it sits on the porch of the church.

Peter and Cecilia had only two known children, but both survived to adulthood and left descendants.

1. Magnus, baptized 2 january 1701, Dalby, Skane, Sweden. He was buried on 5 May 1741 in Harlosa, Skane, Sweden. Magnus married Sophia Sjoholm on 10 July 1733 in Malmo at St. Petri’s Church.
2. Sara, baptized on 22 May 1704 and was buried on 7 February 1769. She married (1) Jons Bager on 22 August 1726 and (2) Eric Wickman on 5 July 1734. All of these events took place in Dalby, Skane, Sweden.

In spite of sharing some relatively rare Swedish surnames, I am hoping to find some new cousins out there.

Swedish research

Jons Bager & Sara Prytz

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This is becoming a bit of an international spree with posts about Swedish and Canadian roots for the last few days.

Today’s post is about the family of Catharina Maria Bager, one of the subjects of my post from two days ago.

I am hoping that because my Swedish family ties had few patronymic surnames and some much less common surnames that perhaps I will find some new cousins out there.

No birth or baptismal record has been found yet for Jons Bager, so I don’t know the names of his parents. However, he was about 35 years old when he was buried on 24 July 1733 in Dalby, Skane, Sweden, so he was born about 1698.

Jons married Sara Prytz on 22 August 1726, also in Dalby. Sara was baptized on 22 May 1704, again in Dalby, and was the daughter of Peter Prytz and Cecilia Petersdotter. Sara was buried on 7 February 1769 in Dalby.

Jons and Sara had three children born to them, but only one survived long past infancy.

1. Hans Peter, baptized 13 May 1727, Dalby, Skane, Sweden. Hans Peter was buried on 17 March 1728, aged ten months old, in Dalby.
2. Catharina Maria, baptized 31 January 1729, Dalby, Skane, Sweden and was buried on 17 November 1784 in Veberod, Skane, Sweden. Catharina married Hans Krook on 13 September 1749 in Dalby. This family was the subject of my 1 October 2015 blog post.
3. Cecilia Sophia, baptized 6 January 1731 and was buried on 29 August 1731, both in Dalby, Skane, Sweden.

Jons Bager was an innkeeper and likely worked with/for Peter Prytz, Sara’s father. No cause of death was given in his burial record. Like the Krok/Krook family, the Bagers and the Prytz family would be considered socially above the typical population of their time. However,  while they were economically much better off than others, they were not nobility.

Jons left his young widow Sara and his lone surviving child, Catharina Maria, when he died. Sara waited through the customary mourning period and, one year and a few days later, on 5 July 1734, she married Eric Wickman in Dalby.

Eric was an inspector, so was of an appropriate social class for Sara. He was born about 1704, but, as with Jons, no birth or baptismal record has yet been located for him so his parents are unknown. Sara was widowed a second time when Erik died and was buried on 17 March 1756 in Dalby.

Eric and Sara had three children of their own, two of whom apparently survived to adulthood.

1. Peter, baptized 2 May 1735, Dalby, Skane, Sweden. No burial record has been found for Peter, but I have not been able to trace his whereabouts after birth.
2. Lena, baptized 15 September 1738 and buried on 15 May 1740, both in Dalby, Skane, Sweden.
3. Lena, baptized 22 September 1741 in Dalby. She reportedly married Nils Brack/Brock and died in 1794, but, if true, neither her marriage nor her burial records are in the Dalby church books. However, their daughter Helena Sara was born in Dalby on 17 February 1772. No further records have been found for them.

Molin, Swedish research

Stalking Anders Molin

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The entire Molin family had been my brick wall for years. I had Anders Molin, wife Sara Brita Krok and son Hans Niclas, born in 1778 in Finja, Skane, Sweden. During the last couple of years, with persistence, help from cousin Krister Thorell and then additional help from other newly discovered cousins, many more pieces have been placed in the puzzle of this family’s life.

We are still looking for what happened to their second son, Hans Peter, born in 1782. He disappears from the Oved church register in the early 1800’s. I suspect he may not have married and died leaving no descendants, but I hope I am wrong.

We are also looking for Sara Brita’s oldest son, Jons Abraham, born in 1786. He, too, may have died unmarried with no descendants, but that, too, needs to be proven.

Right now, the mystery at the top of my brick wall list is the date and place of Anders Molin’s death. He was born in 1740 and disappeared from Marstrand, Sweden in 1786. He and Sara Brita had gone their separate ways and when she died, her probate calls her “widow.” I have no idea whether she told people she was a widow or if she actually knew when Anders died.

Based on the ages at death of the two generations after Anders, I believe he likely died in his 60’s or maybe even his 50’s. If he was actually alive when Sara Brita died in 1812, he would have been 72. It is certainly not impossible, but most of the Molin males died in their mid-60’s or earlier.

It is very problematic that church records are kept at the local parish level in Sweden. Marstrand was a couple hundred miles from where he was born and where he, Sara Brita and their two sons lived until about 1784.

On a positive note, probate districts are many fewer in number than church parishes. Someone told me there are a couple hundred of these courts, with each big city having its own and rural areas sharing a district court. Now, not every person had probate begun when they died. They obviously had to have some kind of an estate and at least one heir. Anders Molin was a master mason, so if nothing else, I think his tools would have been valuable enough to create a probate. Also, if he had debts or his apprentices owed him money for their training, probate would have been used to sort out income versus debts.

I have a plan – I purchased a one year subscription to ArkivDigital, using its special rate at RootsTech. I have already looked through most of the probate courts covering the southern tip of Sweden, his original home. There are a few Molin probates, but none for Anders. Each register index covers a good span of time, so I doubt I have missed a file for him as I figured, although very unlikely, he could have lived to age 100.

Besides cataloging all my scanned images this summer in my Genealogy Go-Over and remounting them in my archival albums, I have one other goal. That is my Anders Molin plan – I am going to search every probate court index to see if I can find one for Anders. I just hope he didn’t scoot across the water to Denmark or Norway.

I will let you know whether or not I am successful!