A Note About Names

John Robert Swenson and Elina Anderson Paulson with their mother, Bengta Swenson, circa 1908

As I search for the history of the people in these pictures, for the history of my own family – I am struck by the variation of names in the different documents I find.  Some are caused by errors (transcription or original). I imagine the census taker trying to explain what he wants from the elderly Bengta Swenson – “your husband’s name!” he says impatiently to the elderly immigrant woman who speaks faulty English even after years in America. “Oh, she responds, nodding, “Andrew, his name was Andrew”. And so we find her as “Andrew, Benyta” in the 1910 census. Her grandson, Charles Haquin Holmgren (recently arrived from Sweden and staying with his grandmother while he gets established), is listed as “Kofingrin, Charles K., boarder.

So – my Bengta is “Betty”, is “Benedicta”, is “Begnata”, is “Benyta” depending where I search. She is “Swenson” and “Anderson” and “Andrew” and “Nielson” and “Nilson”. The records are full of misinformation, but also a sort of flexibility of name, a purposeful choice.  Sometimes a choice to Americanize names – so that Anders Swenson becomes Andrew Swenson in the official naturalization record. Sometimes a choice to choose a new name, one that is less common, so that Carl Nelson– who married one of my Olivia Texas residents – becomes, upon ordination from Augustana Theological Seminary, “Charles Nordell” because there are so many others with his former name.  And in his case, he does this very officially. It takes an Act of the Kansas legislature to make the change. 

Perhaps this flexibility was especially easy for the Swedish immigrants. They were coming at a time where last names were just becoming stabilized in their own country.  A change from patronymic system where every man was named as his father’s son – Svenson, Paulson, Nilsson; and every daughter was her father’s daughter – Svensdotter, Paulsdotter, Nilsdotter to a family name where surnames stopped changing with every generation and a man or woman kept the last name of their father, instead of the first. 

The name an immigrant and his family brought to the new world tended to “stick”.   So Anders Swenson’s sons, who had been “Andersson” in Sweden became “Swenson”, in the new world. Only Elina, their sister (married back in Sweden to Paul Paulson), kept the name Anderson as her official maiden name.  (Confusing her American descendants, who are always asking with great puzzlement – “Now how are the Swensons related?)

And so it is, our immigrant ancestors brought their names along with their luggage. And in this new land, often those names changed. Like their owners, through the years becoming more American.

Identifier

Negative: paulson349.jpg

Place: Davenport, Iowa

Date: Circa 1908. I suspect this picture was taken soon after Anders Swenson’s death

People:

John Robert Swenson (1870 to 1950, immigrated from Sweden 1882)

Elina Anderson Swenson (1855 to 1928, immigrated from Sweden 1882)

Bengta Swenson (1831 to 1915, immigrated from Sweden 1882)

 (More can be found about these individuals in the earlier post  Cast of Characters 2. The Swenson Children. )

Sources:

Olson, Irving J. / Smolenning slekt.  [S.I] : [I.J. Olson], 1973 page 127.  (Rev. Carl Oscar Nordell “Took the name Nordell upon ordination because of the number of ministers named Nelson”)

General Laws of the State of Kansas, Kansas State Journal, 1905 pg 478.  Chapter 309. Carl Oscar Nelson to Carl Oscar Nordell, House Bill 453. An act to change the name of Carl Oscar Nelson.

1910 Census, accessed through Ancestry.com  (and by the way – special kudos to Ancestry.com for allowing users to submit corrections, and alternatives to the record when they find transcription errors.

1880 Swedish Census, accessed through (and with the assistance of the staff at) the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, Rock Island, Illinois.