Happy Birthday, Måtta!

The ruins of the church at Balkåkra.

Måtta Svensdotter was born July 28, 1788 in Hedeskoga, Skåne, Sweden. Her parents were Sven Larsson and Ingeborg Hansdotter. Måtta spent her entire life in the far southern point of Sweden near the ocean and the coastal town of Ystad. She married Ola Sträng Mårtensson in Blentarp in 1815. They had three sons and two daughters. A son and daughter died during childhood. Their oldest, Mårten, was the father of Håkan Mårtensson who was the father of Jenny Hawkinson Nelson, the grandmother of my dad. Måtta and Ola were tailors who traveled around southern Sweden making clothing for people. Måtta died 10 Apr 1847 in Gusnasva, Balkåkra.

Måtta was my 4th great grandmother. Interestingly, two of my own children share her birthday. 

You can read more about her family story by clicking this link. 

Ola Strang Mårtensson from around Ystad (Håkansson – Hawkinson family of Osage City, Kansas)

Happy birthday, Johannes Ivarsson!

Johannes Ivarsson was born on July 8, 1816 in Byarum, Jönköping, Sweden on Bodabygget farm. He

Plätt Farm, Byarum parish, Jönköping

was the second child of Ifvar Knorr Assarsson and Eva Johannessdotter. Johannes had four sisters and two brothers.

He grew up in the area of Byarum and when he was twenty-eight, he purchased land on Plätt farm where his older sister Lena, also lived with her family, near the town of Vaggeryd.

A year later, on the 31st of May 1846, Johannes married Inga Christina Svensdotter and they began their family with a son, Johan. (Johan was later known to his family in America as John August Johnson who settled in McPherson County, Kansas.) Johannes and Inga Stina had three boys and three girls in the following years. Johan, Britta, Emilia, Christina, Sven, and Anders.  

In 1846 dysentery swept through southern Sweden. Christina (age 4) and Sven (age 2) contracted it and died on the same day. One week later, Johannes also died of it on September 14, 1846.