Någonstans i Sverige = Somewhere in Sweden

I found a puzzle yesterday at the swap meet.  I picked up this charming family group photograph, and turned it over to find this:

which is in Swedish.  An antique family photograph with all of the names written on it!  That's unusual enough in itself, but of course I also do Swedish genealogy, and so my interest was piqued for that.  And one way that I "pay it forward" for all of the help I've received over the years is to attach identified family photos to their records in FamilySearch.  And so I bought the photo.

The writing says: "Från vänster [from the left]: [back] Gustaf Olsson o. Sven, Erland Gustafsson o. Inga-Maj; [middle] Axel Ericksson, Elsa o. Anna, mormor o. morfar, Tyra o. Svante; [front] Viola, Gärda, Elsa, Åke, Gösta".  "O." is just short for och, "and".  I can tell that it's Swedish from vänster (spelled venstre in Danish and Norwegian), and also because of some of the names: "Gärda" is a Swedish spelling for "Gerda", "Gösta" and "Åke" and especially "Svante" are much more common in Sweden that in the other Nordic countires.  So, definitely Swedish, and from the house in the background, almost definitely in Sweden.

But I've spent a couple of hours now, on two different days, searching through the various databases for an Erland Gustafsson with a daughter named Inga-Maj, or a Gustaf Olsson with a son Sven (needle in a haystack), or an Axel Olsson with a wife Elsa and/or a daughter Anna, and I haven't found any yet who look at all likely, let alone with family members that line up with the other names.  (I can hardly complain, after someone took the trouble to write the names on the back, that they didn't give the grandparents' names, but gee, that would have helped enormously!)

From Tyra's dress, this looks like early 1930s or maybe late 1920s.  The mid-1920s, depending on the various Swedish parishes and the dates of their respective registers, is generally the cutoff date of when the registers are restricted for privacy, and so I suspect I'm being hampered a bit by that.  I think I can presume that the babies being held by their mothers belong with them, so Elsa and baby Anna go together, and Tyra and baby Svante.  But there is one too many "dads" in the photo -- probably Axel Ericksson goes with Elsa (and therefore Anna as well), and probably Erland Gustafsson (and baby Inga-Mai?) with Tyra (and therefore Svante as well?).  But what about Gustaf Olsson and baby Sven?  And whose mormor and morfar are the older couple?  I think I can see family resemblances in the faces, especially some of the mothers and daughters -- and by their matching sailor suits, the two little boys are brothers -- but I don't want to read too much into that, as they are probably all closely related, siblings and cousins, most likely first cousins.  Since the photo has ended up in a Southern California swap meet, it's probably safe to assume that a few, if not a number of them ended up in America -- or did the family who stayed in Sweden send the photo to yet-another sibling in America? or were some of the little ones in the photo actually born in America and the photo records a visit back to Sweden to see the grandparents?!

Comments

[Wendy]

Precious. My Mom (25% Danish) was once an antique dealer. Her booth featured discarded family photos (not ours!) in a display entitled "instant ancestors"