Surname, Olausson - Prastbacka Farm, Rora Parish, Orust Island, Bohuslan

I.  Tracking generations before someone changed the name is interesting.  The children of Kajsa Johannsdotter and Anders Olausson took the name Osterlund upon arriving here, and even Kajsa Johannsdotter became Kajsa Osterlund.

How to firm up who Kajsa Johannsdotter's parents were. We found, in looking elsewhere, an example of the difficulties in researching names.  Here, there are similar names and family events. Did the family have its heritage in Orust Island? Then how and why did the go to Kinnekulle.


II.The Orust Diary.

Jakob Jonsson July 21, 1795-March 18, 1879, was an owner of Prastbacka farm, Rora Parish, Orust Island, Bohuslan. He wrote a diary covering 1866-1879.  One Anders Gustavsson came across it, a century after Jakob's death, see  background at Anders Gustavsson, Biography. Anders Gustavsson translated and presented it, with maps and pictures, at Death in a 19th Century Peasant Society -- Analyzed by Means of a Peasant's Diaries From a Rural Community on the Western Coast of Dweden

Events related to half-owners moving in and also working the farm, a devastating epidemic, families die off, few survive, who they marry, what happens, are similar to the Kajsa Johannsdotter story.  Is there a connection, or is it coincidence.

Is this Jakob Jonsson, in a nation of thousands of sons of John - Johann - Johannes - Johanns - Jon - Jonson - Jonsson -- connected in any way to Kajsa Johannesdotter, but it also is spelled Johannsdotter, who married (we understand) Anders Peter Olausson, producing multiple children who took the name "Osterlund" upon emigrating, and remained Osterlunds?  A higher status name than the farmer Anders-son or Anders-dotter would have been, but not an uncommon discretionary change.


III.  Kajsa Osterlund's story, told to  Anna Widing, told to Britsie (niece)

"The Osterlund family came from the small village of Kinnekulle, on the eastern side of Lake Vanern, province of Ostergotland.  There is a mountain named Kinnekulle, with tourist information on top, and, I think, a park.  It is said to be very beautiful. We have some old photographs of people, not the place itself.

"Anna Matilda Osterlund Widing was the middle daughter among seven children – two died in infancy – whose father was Anders, I think, Osterlund, and Cajse or Kajse Osterlund.  We use Kajsa here.

The older sons of the seven went to the US, and eventually sent for their mother, Kajsa, and siblings.  They, Anna – later Widing; Selma – later Sjostrom; Otto and Josephine came to Philadelphia.  The older brothers ended up in the Midwest.

"The story is that Kajse’s parents were landowners and had a farm.  The “red plague” as the family called it, maybe typhoid or scarlet fever, swept the village when Kajsa was a young girl.  Her parents and siblings died.  She survived, nursed through it by a young farmhand, Anders (not sure of first name) Osterlund. They married and had nine children, seven surviving.

"When Kajsa was pregnant with the last, Josephine, Anders cut his hand ploughing.  He developed tetanus, and died of lockjaw.  He left his young widow with seven children.  Anna Matilda (later Widing) was sent out to live with another farm family and to work for them.  She developed very strong work habits which stayed with her the rest of her life.  I don’t think she enjoyed that family very much, but she did learn to be very self-reliant.