Paw!

Alright, guys. This is gonna be fun. I'mma try to get you all interested in personal genealogical research, by sharing my results with you. If you've got exciting stories of your own, please feel free to share them in the comments below! Knowing how we relate backwards in time can be a boon to feeling connected to each other in the present. :)

I'm gonna start with my paternal great-grandfather on my mother's side. Partly this is so in case weird people see this, no one will stalk me. Haha. Starting with him, his wife's mother was Lydia Petersson.

Aside: Swedish and Norwegian naming is superbly helpful to genealogical study, because prior to the population explosion in the 1800s because of the agricultural revolution, many people simply were given the name "x son/daughter of y," as you can see is very common in Biblical naming as well. My suspicion is that with smaller populations per town, there were likely only one or a few individuals by the same name, so a guy whose father's name was Adam might go by the name Adamsson, or the Anglican(?) variant, Adamsen. Hence, by looking at Mr. Paul and David Adamsen's name, you can tell that at some point in recent history, they have an ancestor by the name of Adam. Eventually, people started going by two names and the second name became the 'family name.'

Lydia's dad was Elias Petersson, and his wife was Anna Kristina Olofsdotter. (dotter is the Swedish spelling of "daughter").

her mother was Anna-B Christiansdotter, the daughter of Christian Eriksson and Anna Mattisdotter.

Mattisdotter was the child of Mattis Mattisson and Malena Olofsdotter. Her dad was a guy by the name of Olof Knutsson, and his father's name in the genealogy is interesting: Knut Jorgensson Moonshield (I can't use the last 3 letters in the Swedish alphabet because of formatting problems, so I'm converting). I'm curious whether Moonshield is a family name or not, because it continues to recur several times in his patrilineal heritage.

Knut Jorgensson's father was, you guessed it, Jorgen Knutsson, whose father was Knut Petersson. This is circa 1550.

Now we diverge from the Moonshield lineage to Knut Petersson's mother, Bodil Lauritzdotter Green (I wonder if this is indicative of English ancestry mixed in with the Swedish?).

Bodil's father was Lauritz Olovsson Green, whose father was Olov Lauritzsson Green.

And now we run into a bit of scandal. I suspected that it would. You live in blissful ignorance so long as you can avoid, either through lack of data or lack of will, to delve into the personal histories of your ancestors. Personally, I had had suspicions of murderers in the family tree, just because 2000 years is bound to turn up at least one guy who let his anger have control over him. But I'd also wondered if there was close intermarriage at some point, since I believe we're all descended from a small population of people just a few thousand years ago--it's bound to happen. What I didn't quite expect was what follows.

Pay attention.

Olov Lauritzsson Green was the child of Lauritz Lauritzsson Green and Birgitta Magnusson Green. Lauritz's father's name was Laurens Green, and Birgitta's father was Magnus Green.

Laurens Green and Magnus Green were brothers.

WHOOOOAAAAHH!!! You read that right. 1st-cousin incest in the 17th generation from mine. One can't help but wonder about the circumstances. What did Laurens and Magnus think of this? And poor Olov. That's gotta lend itself to being socially ostracized. Poor chap. And incidentally, that's about the end of the English-sounding names, for now we come back to Sweden.

Laurens and Magnus Green were the children of Sten Haraldsson Green. His mother was a Torkelsdotter, her mother was a Ulfsdotter, and her mom was Helena Siggesdotter.

Helena Siggesdotter's dad was Sigge Guttormsson, who married Helena Birgersdotter.

Birgersdotter....why's that name familiar? Oh, right, she was the daughter of Birger Jarl, the founder of Stockholm! Also the guy who conquered Finland, which then belonged to Sweden for the next several hundred years until the Russians took it. Finland finally won its independence in between the World Wars, if I recall correctly.

Now, Jarl is a title in old Swedish society. As is Karl and Trael. Roughly speaking, royalty, nobility, and underclass (slave-like). Apparently Birger's actual family name was Magnusson.

This would clarify the dilemma I had in figuring out whether what relationship Birger had to Birger Brosa, in the genealogy. Birger Brosa was Birger Jarl's uncle, and brother to Magnus Bengtsson, called Mini-Shield.

Excellent! I cleared that one up and will be sure to add that note so I don't forget.

As an exciting side note, Birger Jarl is in the 24th generation from me by way of this lineage, but by way of another one that goes through his half sister, he's in the 26th generation. Cool, huh? Not all generations are the same length, and over time, they add up.

Magnus Bengtsson's dad is Bengt Snivels, whose father was Folke den Tjocke and the daughter of Knut den Helige, aka Canute IV of Denmark. In case you didn't know, at that time Denmark was a regional power. Sweden and Norway banded together some time shortly after the death of Birger Brosa to fight off a Danish invasion at the Battle of Lena.

Canute's wife Edel was daughter of a Flemish (Belgian) king called Robert IV. Here's the unbroken male lineage for a bit.

Balduin V
Balduin IV
Arnulf II
Balduin III
Arnulf I
Balduin II
Balduin I, who was married to Judith, daughter of a Frankish king by the name of Karl den Skallige, or Charles II.

He was the son of Louis the Pious, the son of Charlemagne, the son of Pippin, the son of Charles Martel.

Charles Martel is credited with having saved Europe from Islamic invasion in the Battle of Tours/Poitier, and his grandson Charlemagne is credited with uniting most of Europe, the first time that had been accomplished since the fall of the Roman Empire. Between the two of them, had they not been born, Europe as we know it in history would likely never have existed. And neither would I!

It's cool to be descended from kings. Not a direct male-line descent, of course, but descent nonetheless. Had any of these men died before they had children, I wouldn't be here to talk about it. :)

Personally, I'm glad it worked out this way. :)