MORE ABOUT SWEDEN - LAND OF OUR ANCESTORS

Posted by Carolyn J. Christensen

About 1,000 years ago a central Swedish realm began to take shape, with its core in the fertile farmlands and waterways around Lake Mälaren. By the 16th century, when Sweden became a centralized state, the country had fewer than a million inhabitants within its present-day borders.

Over a long period of history, Swedish farmers lived together in small villages with common grazing lands and allotments in common croplands. During the 18th and 19th centuries the central government implemented a major series of reforms that divided up the commons, brought together the scattered allotments of each farming family and moved their farmhouse to their “new” consolidated property.

These reforms accelerated the technical development of Swedish agriculture but also had social consequences. During the 19th century, when Sweden enjoyed peace, the population began to grow rapidly. This resulted in a large wave of migration to the expanding forestry operations and wood product industry of Norrland, to industrial jobs in Swedish urban areas, as well as abroad to the cities and prairies of North America. Over a million of the country’s inhabitants, about one/fifth of the people, emigrated during the period 1865–1914.
 
The ancestors of Carl and Gerda were part of the farming culture in Sweden.  Then Carl And Gerda became part of the great migration from Sweden to America.  Carl emmigrated in 1891 and Gerda left Sweden for America in 1900.