Many of us spend Christmas about the same way every year. We know pretty well what will happen as long as nothing unexpected disrupts our plans. For my great grandmother Dagny, disruption was more rule than exception as she recounted some of her different kinds of Christmases in a mission calendar in the year 1916.... Continue Reading →
My grandmother Edna was born in China in 1913. One of her first memories was from the journey she made with her family when she was three years old. She used to tell me about it. Discovering how my great grandparents spent their time out of China is quite interesting. Travelling took so long back... Continue Reading →
After my visit this summer to Strömsborgs Vilohem at Rådmansö, north of Stockholm, I’ve felt curious about the time my relatives spent out of China as well. In some ways, these years and months are not as well documented. Yes, they did write letters to their missionary colleagues in and out of China - but... Continue Reading →
Researching family history is interesting in many ways. Aside from understanding more about where you come from, you can connect with present-day relatives that you might not even have known existed. This has happened to me on a few occasions since I started researching and writing about my geneaology findings, and is also a big... Continue Reading →
We are many who have lost loved ones the past years. Coping with grief is part of life and something we all go through at one point or another, always hoping it will be later, rather than sooner. Through the years I have written a few obituaries. It has always felt a bit strange, trying to... Continue Reading →
What we are experiencing in Europe today is on everyone's mind. No one knows how this will end, how many lifes will be affected or what will happen to our world. WWII is not that far away in the past, and even though my own generation did not have to live through it, our parents... Continue Reading →
As we're finally leaving the dark, cold and poor January behind us in Scandinavia, the Chinese are about to enter their big festivity of the New Year. In 2022 the year of the Tiger starts on the 1st of February. In 1905, the newly baked missionary Olga spent her first Chinese New Year celebrating the... 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 →
My great grandmothers Olga and Dagny were both alone when they travelled back to Sweden after having spent their entire adult lives in China being missionaries together with their husbands. Olga’s husband Nils passed in ileus, in 1942 (age 61) and Dagny’s husband Robert died from heart disease in 1930 (age 62). They were both... Continue Reading →
Do you get frustrated when the bus or train is late, or all the roads are clogged, and you have to sit in car queues waisting your valuable time? One of the reasons I use my bike whenever the weather allows, is that I don't like to wait to get going. I want to decide... Continue Reading →
The discovery of a rare photograph of my great grandmother playing in the snow.
Photography is the art of preserving what we do not want to forget. Through photography we can see the world both as it is, and discover new interpretations of that same reality. Back in the days, when photos didn’t lie – when retouching and editing photos was non-existing – photography was something very special. People... Continue Reading →
A story about family geneaology research, a wedding picture and how a braid was a determining factor in my familys' continutiy.
Reading letters from my great grandmother I slowly unveil her history and piece together the puzzle that is our familys' legacy
Thérèse Amnéus 