Husförhör (Household Examination) explained
I looked up page 23 of the husförhör that covered the time frame of Anna Abrahamson's birth.
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| Stommen Frölunda husförhör 1880-1895 left side |
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| Stommen Frölunda husförhör 1880-1895 right side |
This husförhör covers the years 1880-1895. Everyone listed in column one lived on Stommen at some point during the years of 1880-1895. Just before each name is the status or position of each person. Scroll to the middle of the page. The prefix Dr. stands for Drang or unmarried male worker. Pige as prefix are unmarried female workers. These are folks hired to help work the farm. The person's name is added with the date they arrived and from where. When a person leaves his/her name is crossed out and it is noted when and where they moved to.
Note that my second great grandfather Edvard Julius' name is crossed out. During this time frame he died and his death is recorded as (24 Jul 1886) and also after second great grandmother Charlotta's name the date when she became a widow is recorded also (24 Jul 1886).
Here is the cool thing I discovered. See line #13, lucky #13.
Pige Anna Karolina Karlsdotter born 11, Feb 1859 in Häcksvik came to Stommen in the year 1880. Her name is crossed out and she is again written in just below Robert Albin as his hustru (wife) on 16 Jul 1881. Because of page 23 I now know how my great grandparents met.
Robert Albin fell for and married the hired help!
*click on documents to enlarge for easier reading*
2 comments:
Nice discovery, Ranae! Robert Albin fell for the hired help. But the next question will then follow: What made Anna Karolina choose to look for employment at Stommen, a farm very recently taken over by strangers, who in addition must have spoken a for her very stange and partially non-understandable dialect? (I know about these dialect difficulties from my maternal grandma who was from Dalarna. She was widowed when I was four, and then Gustaf's Hulda died a few years later. As a thinking kid I thought it would be very practical if Grandma would marry Gustaf so they didn't have to live alone. I told my mother about my great idea, but she couldn't see how that would be possible, as Grandma apparently didn't understand anything what Gustaf said in his broad Frölunda dialect).
In the light of what you just found out, I am tempted to exclaim the Swedish saying: "Kvinnans list övergår mannens förstånd", "The cunning of the woman surpasses the sense of the man". (You have a similar saying in English?)
Why? Listen to this:
One day Anna Karolina is visiting Östra Frölunda from Håcksvik where she lives. She is walking the street together with two friends. They happen to meet a young man they haven't seen before, a blond man, handsome like a god. Having passed him, Anna Karolina turns to her friends and hears herself saying: "That one I'm going to marry". Yes, you guess who the young man was.
And now, Ranae, what you have found out means that she must have determined to do what she heard herself saying. She has checked who he was and were he lived, laid a plan, sought employment at the newcomers farm and managed to get the attention of the young god.
I asked my aunt Gunhild if she could tell something about her grandma. And what she said fits well into this story: Anna Karolina was a friendly but quiet woman, respected by all and often sought by people in the surroundings who needed good advice.
She was a wise and determined woman who knew how to prepare her ways already as a young lady. Isn't this a nice story?
Under the heading "134 years ago today - Albin & Anna Abrahamsson" a question is asked about the nature of their relationship. I don't know very much about this either, but have a qute anecdote about the couple to share that MAY say something.
One day Anna Karolina and Robert Albin are taking a walk together down to the shore of Ätran. Supposedly it's a quite common stretch for them. But this day there is something extra in the air. As they are alone, hidden things can be done. As a result, nine months later the family enjoyes a newborn baby.
I don't know how long they kept the story secret. Normally such information is seldom, if ever, disclosed. It may have been many years later when they mentioned the secrets, maybe even as part of a little family joke. I heard it from Gösta some years ago, but when I recently interrogated Håkan and Knut if they knew about it and maybe even could tell which of the kids that was "made" in this manner, none of them had heard anything at all about the strory.
Then it's tempting to use fantasy as there are so few facts to build upon. Imagine a scenery at the end of May. The sun has returned after a long winter, it's warm but still not hot. The grass is fresh and green, the leaves of the trees have just sprouted and the greenery is sheer and thin. Flowers are sprouting on trees as well as on the ground, and their fragrances fill the air. The birds have returned and sing beuautifully with their voices as clear as ever. Maybe the cuckoo is calling. Ätran's water glistens in the sun and even the human hormones have awoken after the dark winter. Life is just amazing and the love between the two is wonderfully felt, like a mild electrcal current. The scen is really set for something special today.
Leaving fantasy and entering detective work, you quickly realize that seven of the kids are born at times of the year that means conception has taken place during the cold part of the year. For two the time is set to the end of summer or beginning of fall, times when there are still some warm days but the nature is starting to close down for the coming winter. It's long since the last bird song was heard and the grass is pale and dry. Love can still sprout but likely not as intensively as in the spring scenery described above.
Deciding to rule out theese two from the most likely group, there is just one left. A child born February 25 points to a conception in a time of the year that fits perfectly in the scenery above.
Nothing can be proved, but if the story is true, I thus find Lydia to be the most plausible candidate for the story.
But the most valuable lesson here is that the story points to a living and true loving relation between Anna Karolina and Robert Albin. A relation that started at Anna Karolinas first sighting of the blond, handsome young man who had just arrived to live in Östra Frölunda and later was to be answered by him when she was working as a "piga" at the Stommen farm. This is described in the comment above.
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