Finding your Swedish roots and more.

Over the past few days, I have been enjoying an extremely interesting website (read: falling down a major ancestry rabbit hole). It’s in Swedish, at https://www.rotter.se/swedish-roots, but if you don’t read Swedish, you can have it translate to English. I had been on the site before but hadn’t really looked through it, until it was pointed out to me again by one of my blogging friends, Thérèse. Her amazing family history blog can be seen here: https://thereseamneus.wordpress.com/.

The Swedish Roots site has all kinds of resources for learning about your Swedish ancestry, but the part I like the best is the Old Portrait Database. You can go on and create a free account, and then you can upload CDV or cabinet card photos, as long as they are at least 100 years old. Then you can hope someone will recognize them and comment to tell you who they are. Or you might be looking through other people’s photos and find someone you know is actually related to you. Or you might see what seem to be genetic resemblances and wonder, “Could it possibly be. . .?”

On the left, an unknown man from the website. On the right, one of Petronella’s brothers (either Johan or August). What I notice most about these two is the similarity in their eyes. It’s kind of a sleepy look, to me, and I have always wondered if it was genetic or if there was another reason for this. Maybe they were just bored with having their picture taken and it showed in their eyes.

J.P. Svensson (left) from Petronella’s photo album, next to an unknown man from Swedish Roots. J.P. Svensson had his photo taken in Ljungby, which according to Google Maps, isn’t far from Värnamo, or Jönköping for that matter. Our unknown friend had his picture taken in Jönköping. Related to us? Who knows, but the clothing style, hair and mustache are pretty similar.

I think the photo on the left is one of Petronella’s older brothers. While I don’t see any real family resemblance to the unknown man on the right, it was the hair that drew my attention. To be honest, their hair doesn’t look a lot different from mine, now that mine is growing back after having chemo from July to November of last year! I read that it took a lot of pomade and other hair products such as macassar oil for men to get their hair to look like this back then.

As a side note, that’s why these lace “antimacassars” for chairs got started. Women made them to protect their furniture from being damaged by their husbands’ hair.

And, while we’re on the subject of men’s hair, I found this photo, for which I had to use Google Translate to read the captions. This man, Nils Flensburg, was a professor of Sanskrit, which I found extremely interesting. I also read that he was proficient in many languages and studied religion. He looks pretty young in this photo to have accomplished all that, but then he could have been a genius, too.

I soon found myself looking through the Swedish Roots website for more than just family resemblances. I wanted to see all the different hair and dress styles there were for the ladies. In most of the portraits I’ve found online, the women had their hair up. I saved these not only because of their hair, but because of how pretty the dresses were.

Younger girls were more likely to be pictured with their hair down.

As you can see here, the women in my family more often wore their hair pulled tightly back in a bun; not many “Gibson girls” among us, I guess. Maybe I inherited their hair genes.

Not to criticize, but I would be very surprised if at least one of these wasn’t wearing a hair switch. (If you wonder how I would even know that, you must not have read “Bait and Switch”.)

Further down the rabbit hole, I began reading about general studio photography practices in the 1880s. I found that you can tell an engagement photo by the position the woman’s left hand, with the engagement ring prominently visible. Also, look at the amazing details in the design of the dresses. I haven’t found like these in my family photos, but if I ever do, it will definitely be blog material!

After seeing the photo on the left, I understand why Marilla never wanted to make Anne of Green Gables a dress with “puffed sleeves”. She probably could have made a separate dress out of that sleeve material alone. The dress in the center looks like velvet to me, and I saved the last one because the lady’s eyes remind me of my grandma Johnson’s, plus I really like her outfit.

And what would vintage photos be without pets? The tabby cat on the right is a little hard to see, but he was huge. Maine Coon genes, doubtless.

There are so many other amazing photos I could share here, but there’s always the possibility that not everyone is as “into” vintage Swedish photos as I am. So, I’ll give you a break. Until next time.