Sunday, November 14, 2010

Surname, Widing. Boxholm -- Looking for Roots. Family Widing, starting points

Boxholm, Sweden

Widings in the 1920's, 1930's.  Return visits by Philip Wilhelm Widing and Anna Osterlund Widing, on either side of the flowers, to the family home - now gone - and we do not know if others also returned to visit from America, or what.   FN 1




The Widing men -- Philip's four sons -- all look like these. 
Genes are eerie.

















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FN 1

Some Widings (ours) stemmed from Boxholm. My husband's grandfather was Philip Wilhelm Widing, and he married Anna Matilda Osterlund, after they were here in the United States. We don't know how they met.

For the Widing family, they all seem to have left Boxholm in the late 1800's. A diaspora, along with the thousands and thousands of other emigrants in the late 19th Century to America.

We believe these photos are from a return trip in the 1920's of Philip Wilhelm Widing and Anna. They had settled in Philadelphia. Anna Osterlund was originally from Kinnekulla, Sweden. How did they meet? Their return visit was to; to Philip Wilhelm Widing's home at Boxholm.

The town has undergone urban renewals, so that the old houses we were looking for are gone, and new efficient blocky buildings (very functional, and serve the purpose) have been put up instead. That happens everywhere, but is a disappointment to returning families who hoped to find perhaps a quaint Ystad inland. Not so. But people were so friendly and helpful, and we enjoyed the pizza for lunch and even met someone with great access to the library -- fine people, in Boxholm. She came in just to help. This is a fine community for living.

Still, towns in Sweden seem to have none of those basic information-theme centers (the big universal "i" sign); or arrow signs on posts to direct folks around.

We came in the wrong way, through the woods, and possibly missed signs at the lake side route. Perhaps we should have started at the RR station, but then we would have missed that wonderful library. Need to go back to see the local museums and find gravesites at Ekeby. We had tried to find old graves at the big church, and did not realize that the old small parishes may have been a place to look, predating 1880 or so. Next ones back, go look for Farfar's kors.

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