Vacation trip to Norrland 2008
Every year we use to make a trip to look around in places where our ancestors lived
- a "genealogy trip". This year it was to the places where Björn's maternal
grandfather's mother and her ancestors lived in the county of Jämtland in middle
Sweden. On our way home we also visited Sollerön in Dalecarlia, where Ann Britt
had ancestors in almost all the villages. Sometimes we are lucky and actually succeed
in localising and photographing a house the ancestors have lived in, and on some
rare occasions even meet relatives unknown until then; but the important thing is
to get a feeling of how nature and buildings look where the ancestors lived. For
us living close to Stockholm city it is not so easy to understand how life was when
you had 25 miles to your closest neighbour and 50 miles through dark forests and
over barren mountains to the church - you understand better when you have been there.
Here are some of the 184 photos we took on the trip:
Indal river - we crossed it innumerable times, it was always there!
In the middle of the Jämtland countryside (in Utanede, south of Bispgården) there
is a memorial building dedicated to the Thai king Chulalongkorn - so peculiar!
The Dead fall. The great rapids in the Indal river died in a night after they tried
to make a bypass in the 1790:s.
Here we are posing in the lower end of the Dead fall - the water in the background
is now just a calm backwater of the river.
This is the bridge over the Långsel creek, the northernmost point on our trip -
latitude 64,5 north; that's about the same latitude as Klondike. The creek runs
into Ormsjön (Snake lake) in Dorotea parish in Lapland. One of Björn's ancestors,
Johan Olsson Nyberg, who survived the death march over the border mountains in 1719
(more of the story below) became the first settler here.
Between Norråker in Tåsjö parish and Harrsjön in Alanäs parish, right on the county
border between Ångermanland and Jämtland, we came across this curious young bear
- how he wondered what kind of creature our red car was! The highlight of the trip!
Down in this valley is Harrsjön village - the road ends there.
Björn found a relative in Harrsjön. His maternal grandfather's second cousin, it
turned out.
The Rista falls in the Indal river, near Undersåker in western Jämtland. Impressive!
A view to the north-west from Handöl in western Jämtland, close to the border to
Norway. Probably it is the Midday mountains you can see in the background past lake
Ånn.
The memorial over the 600 Swedish and Finnish soldiers that were buried here in
Handöl on 20th January 1719. Probably one of them was Björn's ancestor Zackris Ingelsson
Bolling, who was one of the 3000 soldiers who died in the snowstorm on the border
mountains on New Year's Day 1719. Most of them still lie out there, in Rangeldalen
("Skeleton valley") close to the border to Norway, but it is written about
Zackris that he was buried here in Åre parish. Zackris' son Ingel was also along
on the march, but survived to become a sergeant in the Jämtland Dragoons. He died
1761 in Zackrisgården in Yxskaftkälen in Hammerdal parish, which his son Zackris
built.
The suspension bridge over the Handöl rapids - your knees feel quite wobbly when
you walk out over the roaring rapids.
The memorial in Mora church over Daniel Jonsson from Bengtsarvet in Sollerön, born
1599, died 1664. He was in the 30 years war, and was promoted to major and commander
of Mora company of the Dalecarlia regiment. He was Ann Britt's grand mother's grand
mother's grand father's grand mother's grand mother's father.
A very ancient cottage in Bengtsarvet on Sollerön in Dalecarlia.
Page updated 2008-08-04