Looking for parents via true source and birth certificate please

Question

Hi, This is my great great grandfather, Johan Eriksson known in Australia as John Erickson.  I can't find his birth certificate to confirm any of the links I have floating around.  I have been told that his father was Eric and his mother Christina or Johanna.  Any help or guidance is much appreciated.  [[Erickson-3314|John Erickson (1854-1924)]]  Thanks Trisha

Comments

To get more views from Swedes you should edit your question and add a tag for SWEDEN. Sheer luck that I was curious enough to read this :-)

Answer 1

This is very difficult, because the name is so common. Just to illustrate: in the first complete Swedish census, 1880, there are 142 men named Joh* Er* (Eriksson, Ericsson or Ersson) born in 1854. However, none of them is your John Erickson, because as far as I understand he left Sweden earlier, arrving from New York to Australia in 1874.

Since you have information that his father was named Eric, this indicates that Ericksson was a patronymic name, which does not tell us anything about the last name of his father.

We'll need to ask some follow-up questions. First: how sure are you about the birth year? Does it come from an estimated age at some point in his life? A full birth date would help. Also any inkling of where in Sweden he came from in any of his papers?

Comments

I have looked for him in MyHeritage, and found John Erickson who died in Bendigo 1924 involved in one of those trees copied and re-copied on the Net.

Most of the family can be found in the Swedish church records for Hemsjö parish (which is NOT in Blekinge), but there is no child younger than Helena (1843). So John's attachment to this family has been made through wishful thinking.

We need to start from scratch with thefew clues available in Australian records.

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Hi Eva. I have his naturalisation certificate. Wedding record. Death record. All of which don’t give enough information. All links are wishful and guesses. I wonder if we can look for departure records to help. I’ve had a look at death record says 84 years old in 1924 I’m thinking he was maybe born earlier. 1840?  I have added his death certificate to the Wikitree.

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Am I right that the naturalization record does not give a birth date?

Was he always just plain John, no initial or second given name?

The emigrant index in ArkivDigital throws up 87 Jo* Er* born between 1840 and 1855 and emigrating between 1869 and 1874.

But if he came as a sailor he may not even be in the emigration index.

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I know this is why I'm finding this so hard to piece together.  Not enough to find definitive answers.  I believe he left on a mercenary ship - coldstream, it went to New York, then Australia where he deserted ship in Port Melbourne, that ship then went on to Japan maybe.  He is recorded as arriving Australia in 1874.  Thank you for you help

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How about your DNA matches? Do any of them have a Swedish tree worth following up?

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Yes, heaps of DNA matches but I can't link the trees.  Is there a way to share pictures without posting them publicly.  Don't want to breach any privacy rights etc.  They come from MyHeritage and Ancesty

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I don't do DNA for my own part, so I'm not sure how it works - I'm an all-paper-trail person. And I don't subscribe to Ancestry, but I have a research suscription to MyHeritage (no tree).

I can easily find John Erickson, dead in Bendigo 1924 at Myheritage - but all the trees there have him connected to that incorrect family in "Hemsjö Blekinge".

What I was thinking was that you might have a match with somebody with a Swedish family tree going back a few generations before John Erickson's birth. One could explore such a tree for lost sons without breaching privacy.

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You do tell your closest Swedish ancestors about John Erickson, right? One of them may know something about one of their relatives. If I had a DNA match with that story I would certainly look closely if I had any emigrant Johan in the right timeframe.

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Patricia has been so kind as to invite me to her tree at MyHeritage, but I'm afraid I cannot figure out if the Swedish branches there have a DNA connection to Patricia, or if they are brought in through "SmartMatching", which tends to be based on names and dates. With a name as common as Johan Eriksson (with its variants) and a range of birth dates from 1840 to 1854, there are just too many possibles.

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"Smart Matching" doesn't bring in anything to your tree by itself. You just get suggestions about people that might be same as someone you have in your tree, and then of course you should only confirm it (which changes your tree) if it is clear that it *is* indeed the same person.

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Hi, I've taken out all  the smart matches associated with John Erickson because they are all incorrect.  I have added all my DNA matches to the MyHeritage tree however they don't link to anyone and stand alone.  I am hoping that once I get some details etc on John, that I may be able to link them all together.

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I cannot see who your DNA matches are supposed to be, even as a member. You could perhaps point them out to me through a private message at MyHeritage?

Even without being a member I could see the other trees you are a member of. Are those your DNA matches?

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Good idea.  I'll do that.  Thank you

Answer 2

Birth year 1840 as calculated from age at death is a pretty big difference from birth year 1854 as given on the profile.

Is there a source for the birth year 1854?

Comments

I guess the source is "unsourced family trees" - which is basically worth nothing in a case like this, where somebody has been given the wrong birth family.

If the source for his birth in 1854 is family lore I'd assign a little bit more weight to it.