“Jonas Christiernson and his wife, Maria Hilma, came to Texas in the 1850’s with the help of the Palms, and they settled on the north side of A. J. Nelson’s homestead in the Brushy settlement. Jonas Christiernson, who had been deferred from military service because of a physical handicap, was allowed to stay home on the farm. The couple belonged to the Palm Valley Lutheran congregation. Mrs. Christiernson died in 1884 and her husband in 1891. Their children were Mrs. Sandberg, formerly married to Mr. Mercer, Mrs. C. J. Carlson, Mathilda, Mrs. J. Larson, and there was also a son named August. All the children are now dead. The two older ones, Mathilda and August, are buried in the Palm Valley cemetery.”
Swedes in Texas in Words and Pictures, 1838-1918: English Translation
While the Swedes in Texas in Words and Pictures is arguably the most important resource available for those of us descended from the Swedes who settled in the area around Central Texas, it is frustratingly full of half-truths, vague references, incorrect information, and questionable data. The above paragraph about my great-great-great-grandparents Jonas and Maja Lena Christerson, from the section entitled “The First Swedes in Texas,” contains the following errors in order of appearance:
- Christiernson is not the correct spelling of their name. Their name is spelled three different ways, that I have found, within the book – Christerson, Kristerson, and Christienson
- Maria Hilma is not my great-great-great-grandmother’s name. It’s close, but her name was Maja Lena. Maria is the equivalent of Maja, but Hilma is not quite the same as Lena. I’m kind of quibbling here, but it always bugs me when they don’t get a name quite right.
- “…they settled on the north side of A. J. Nelson’s homestead in the Brushy settlement.”– This is sort of true. Jonas Christerson and A.J Nelson bought their properties in the Brushy settlement on the same day in 1860. And the Nelson’s arrived in 1854, one year after the Christersons, who arrived in 1853. Now I really am quibbling, but it has always bothered me that the Nelson family, who had 2 sons who were later very prosperous, always seem to get the headlines while Jonas and Maja Lena, who had four daughters and one son who died young with no children, barely get a mention in the discussion of early settlers. Granted, this book is written a full 65 years after they emigrated, but it always surprises me how quickly these details are lost in the telling.
- “…deferred from military service because of a physical handicap.”– Not an error, but this is that vagueness I’m talking about. Wish I had more details about this little tidbit. I haven’t found any other mention of Jonas having a handicap in any of my research.
- “Their children were…” Just a general rant here about only referring to a married woman by her husband’s name – 50% feminist, 50% frustrated genealogist. It is lucky that I had the online resources to track down their birth records in Sweden, or I might have had some real difficulty sorting out who these sisters were.
- C.J. Carlson – I was like a dog with a bone about this one. I could not find anything about a C.J. Carlson anywhere. Turns out his name was not C.J. it was John. And that uncovered a whole saga that I will have to dole out to you in installments at some future date. Key an eye out for posts about our murdering horse thief. It’s quite the story.
- “The two older ones, Mathilda and August, are buried in the Palm Valley cemetery.” – Mathilda and August were not older. They were child number four and two respectively. And only August is buried in the Palm Valley cemetery. I finally found Mathilda buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in Austin, Texas, presumably because she was visiting her sister Hedda (that’s Mrs. Sandberg above, my great-great-grandmother who lived in Austin at the time) when she died of consumption in 1870. It wasn’t until I found her recorded twice, in both Travis and Williamson counties, in the 1870 U.S. Census Mortality Schedules, that I even knew to look for her in Travis county.
I know that’s half the fun of doing genealogy – finding all the fun stories behind the stories. But I still get offended beyond all reasonableness when authors of these old and so very precious books just happen to spell my ancestors name wrong or get some other details confused because someone two generations removed from the actual events is telling the story as they remember it. Bless their hearts. There’s still a nugget of truth in there somewhere and you just have to chase down the actual facts in more contemporary documents and accounts. It’s what I live for. Bless my heart.
Chasing Swedes 