Sweden and Finland have a truly interwoven history. I have thought a lot about this lately, as the Finnish decision to join Nato speeded up Sweden's application to do the same. Many Finnish and Finnish-Swedish as well as Swedish-Finnish people live in Sweden and just like me, there are many of us who have relatives... Continue Reading →
Driving back from a short ski trip to Dalarna, about 300 km northwest of Stockhom, I came to think of an old map I once got from my grandmother Edna. She had kept it as it was a record of how grandfather's relatives had moved around in Sweden, from the 17th century onward. As I... Continue Reading →
... and I have not been writing or researching for such a long time. This autumn has been pretty intense. I have had to make some priority changes - mainly focusing on seeing friends and family when I have not been travelling with work. We've had a short window of social possibilities in Sweden, which... Continue Reading →
This year, September is a month of celebration in Sweden. A hundred years ago women could finally vote in the Swedish election of 1921. On the 17th of December 1918, the Swedish parliament decided in favour of voting rights for both men and women. This was the first procedural decision that paved the way for... Continue Reading →
Following the trace of family members from generations ago can be a very interesting and rewarding pastime. Research is often very time consuming and requires a lot of patience, but sometimes you get those fast rewards - and that is an exhilarating feeling! I had one of those moments this summer.After a vacation with my... Continue Reading →
During my research into the history of my missionary relatives, I have found a few telegrams. Whenever there was a need for speedy information and one didn’t trust the postal service to deliver in time, the solution was to send a telegram. Letters could take a month to arrive from Europe to China – sometimes... Continue Reading →
What traces will we leave behind, once we're gone? I don't know if my missionary relatives asked themselves that question in respect to anything but their ultimate goal - heaven. To them, the salvation of souls within their mission in China was number one. They didn't try to reach fame or become uplifted members of... Continue Reading →
The Yellow River or Huang He is the second longest river i China after the Yangtze River. It's an impressive flow of water, vital to the transport of goods and people in a country where it's not always been easy to travel by land. Huang He was of course very important for the missionaries as... Continue Reading →
From the stories my grandmother used to tell me when I was little, there is one I often think about come Christmas. It was 1895 and my grandfather's parents, Dagny and Robert, were newlyweds. They lived in a small Chinese mountain village called Hancheng in the northwest. There were no other Europeans there, and it... Continue Reading →
How I love research! It's something about finding those connections throughout time that fascinates me. When you make that discovery you didn't expect to - even if it's a tiny one. It's like laying a puzzle where you don't have all the pieces when you start and you never know how big that puzzle is... Continue Reading →
Her name was Li-Niang. She worked with Olga and Nils at the station in Dali/Tungchowfu in China. Li-Niang was a hard-working woman, who helped my great grandparents take care of their children. My grandmother Edna loved Li-Niang. It was Li-Niang who taught her Chinese, who made sure she got bathed and hid Edna when bandits... Continue Reading →
The discovery of a rare photograph of my great grandmother playing in the snow.
A reflection on how getting to know your family history can make you feel more connected to your relatives and where you come from. I just received a book I ordered. It's a pretty old book - printed in 1921. I got a tip from a newly found relative that there was a story about... Continue Reading →
Why does family matter so much? I live in a very individualistic society. Sweden is off the charts when it comes to personal freedom and how little we actually take care of our own family (by that I mean relatives like parents, cousins, old folks...) We have built a welfare state, that makes us superflouos... Continue Reading →
Thérèse Amnéus 