Charles/Carl Johan Carlson, a Swedish-speaking FInn or "Finlands-svenske" immigrated to the United States via Liverpool and Boston in mid-July 1907, possibly recruited as an iron miner in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. At the time, he was about seventeen or eighteen years old, and in Finland the Russian Czar had recently ruled that young men should be conscripted into the Russian army. Many Finnish men thought that this violated the post-1809 autonomy of Finland within the Russian Empire. As the only son of a tenant farmer, Carl Henric Carlsson Fratt, Carl Johan did not stand to inherit anything, so he left for "Amerikka" like very many other single Finns, including his older sister Selma. Charles Carlson worked in various mines and lumber camps in Gogebic County, Michigan, where he married an ethnic Swede girl from Bitumen, Noyes Township, Clinton Co., PA whose parents had also immigrated to the United States from Finland in 1892 and 1897. His wife, Esther Anderson of Bitumen, Noyes Township, Clinton County, PA and he married on 30 June 1917 in Puritan Township, Gogebic Co., MI. At the time of his death, aged 56 years, 4 months and 4 days in Bessemer Township, he was a lumberjack.
Death certificate, Bessemer Township, Gogebic Co., MI. 11/11/1945.
Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867-1952. 21 Jul 1917 Puritan Twp., Gogebic Co. MI.
Puritan Township, Gogebic Co., MI Marriage License.
Siirtolaisuusinstituutti--Finland--Institute of Migration, Turku. Passport records, National Archives of Finland, Helsinki; Passport nr: 4044 19.06.1907 Destination: Amerikka.
U.S. Federal Census Year: 1920; Census Place: Erwin, Gogebic, Michigan; Roll: T625_767; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 95; Image: 211.
U.S. Federal Census Year: Year: 1930; Census Place: Au Train, Alger, Michigan; Roll: 972; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 0001; Image: 131.0; FHL microfilm: 2340707.
U.S. Federal Census Year: 1940; Census Place: Erwin, Gogebic, Michigan; Roll: T627_1752; Page: 61B; Enumeration District: 27-8.
Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Registration State: Michigan; Registration County: Gogebic; Roll: 1675573.
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