On Oct. 10, 1911 The San Francisco Call published names of people who had recently applied for marriage licenses in San Francisco. Among them, MAGNISON – HEMMING. That’s Swan Magnuson and and his niece Ebba Nathalia Hemming(sson). They’re in California from Alaska and staying at the Palace Hotel for the occasion.
The Palace Hotel had been severely damaged during the 1906 earthquake, but according to the ad from 1911 it was now ‘entirely rebuilt’.
From an Oral History of Pioneer Women of Alaska:
Vonda V. Kelning was born in Sweden and arrived in Skagway in 1899. She arrived in America with her brother, Swan P. Magnuson in 1897. In 1902 she moved to Rampart until leaving for Fairbanks in 1907. In 1909 she married A.P. Kelning and was widowed in 1913.
Vonda V. Kelning was born Wendla Victoria Magnusson in Döderhult, Kalmar län in 1858. She was one of five siblings. Her brother Sven Peter Magnusson had emigrated to the US in 1885. He came back to Sweden in 1897, and after their mother had died the same year Wendla joined her brother as he returned to the US. They brought with them their 17 year old niece Ebba. Her mother, their sister Maria Lovisa, had died in 1893.
In 1910 they are all living in Fairbanks. Ebba lives with her uncle, known as Swan.
In the 1920 US census Ebba and Swan are listed as husband and wife.
Swan dies in 1936, 72 years old. Ebba is 56. In 1939 she marries Charles Mayben. It’s his 3rd marriage. The documents show that it’s Ebba’s second marriage, but I have not been able to verify that she and Swan were ever legally married.
Wendla and Sven Peter/Swan were my 3rd cousins 3x removed. Ebba was my 4th cousin twice removed.
This is Carl Victor Nilsson, the father of my grandmother Herta. I don’t know much about Carl Victor, but I do know that he was a sea captain, and that he kicked his own son off the boat (more than once) for being drunk. It looks to me as if you wouldn’t want to have messed with Captain Nilsson, but according to a his great grandson, my cousin, he let the drunken son back on the ship pretty quickly.
Both of Carl Victor’s parents had deep roots in Kristdala north of Oskarshamn. Many of his relatives were related to each other in several ways, and as a result I have a disproportionally high number of DNA matches with Carl Victor’s line. Many of his emigrant relatives settled in the mid-west, in Kansas, Illinois, and Nebraska. But I also have mysterious matches on the Northeast coast of England, in the area of West Hartlepool, where Carl Victor apparently spent some time.
I’ve taught at Santa Clara University, in Santa Clara, Calif., for almost 20 years. Recently I’ve learned that when I started teaching there, someone I am related to (4th cousin once removed, if you want to keep track) was enrolled as a student. And it seems, according to Facebook, that he is still good friends with one of my colleagues.
Our relative-in-common is this guy, Johannes Theodor Rudin, who was born Sept. 10, 1865 in Oskarshamn, Sweden and died May 13, 1920 in Miflin, Alabama. He left Sweden in 1885, aged 19, and became a US citizen in Chicago in 1890.
Theodor was my great grandmother’s first cousin, and he must have made quite an impression on someone at some point. I remember hearing his name when I was growing up even tho by then everyone involved had been dead for decades.
Theodor worked for a while for the British corporation Mazapil Copper in Concepcion del Oro, Zacatecas, Mexico. Here the British Vice-Consul in charge of American Interests, who’s signature we can’t decipher, has basically sworn that Theodor was a good guy. Theodor was applying for a new American passport.
We also learn how to sign our letters when we really want to make an impression:
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
xxx
The fact that Theodor (who my family apparently talked about in the 1960s or 1970s) had emigrated in 1885, and they STILL didn’t talk about emigration, is baffling to me.
It seems Theodor had a reasonably successful life. He traveled, worked in different places, got married, twice, and had British Vice-consuls sign themselves ‘obedient servants’ on his behalf. But my family didn’t talk about emigration, at least not in front of the children, when I was a child. Shame is the only explanation that comes to mind.