KARL ALLAN HANSON 1884-1952

Posted by Carolyn Johnson Christensen

1965 found me working at KID Radio/TV, writing commercials for the Radio in Idaho Falls, Idaho.  I remember distincly that on my lunch hour I would work on Genealogy.  One of my ongoing questions was "what happened to great uncle Karl Allan?".  Grandma Gerda didn't know.  She thought he had joined the Navy and died in World War I.  The one thing she remembered was how angry he was with her when she joined the church, and that contact with him ended then. 

I wrote several letters trying to find out about Karl Allan Hansson, including a letter to the Swedish Navy.  However, there were no good results from those letters. 

Through the years, I have tried to find out what happened to Karl.  Did Gerda have any nieces and nephews?  A sister-in-law?

Recently, a new Database has been added to Ancestry.com, a Swedish Death Book.  Because of that, I now know a little about what happened to Karl Allan. 

Following is all the information I have on him. 

KARL ALLAN HANSSON 1884-1952

Karl Allan Hannson was born to Karl Johan Hansson, and Carolina Charlotta Andersson on 24 Jul 1884 in Ostra Ed, Kalmar, Sweden.

He appears in a Household Exam in Backaskog, Ostra Ed, Kalmar, Sweden record in 1884. His family moves to W. Ed but they have not been located there.

In the 1890 Swedish Census, Karl appears with his family in Sten, Kalmar, Sweden. His father is listed as a statkarl which indicates he was a farmer, possibly on government farm land. This would coincide with Gerda’s history where she remembered living on a farm near woods.

Karl’s mother died in 1893 when he was 9 years old. See Gerda’s history for what happened to the family between then and 1897 when the father died and Karl was 13.

Karl next appears in an 1890 Census in Stockholm, Sweden. He is living alone, at age 16. He is listed as a laborer.

Gerda claims to have heard that Carl joined the Swedish Navy, and later died during WWI. His baptism and endowment were done in 1992 in Boise by Edythe Lloyd’s family, and his sealing to parents occurred in the same place by the same family in 1993.

DEATH RECORD (Ancestry.com – Sveriges Dodbok 1947-2006)

The final record we have for Karl just became available. It is a death record from the Swedish Death Book.

It gives the following information:

Hansson, Carl Allan

Home is at Svartmangatan 7 (street) in Stockholm, Storkykrkorforsamling Parish.

His birth was listed as above.

He was an unmarried man.

He died 18 February 1952.

He died in Papeete Tahiti.

Can it be assumed he was still in the Navy and died while serving.