“Review of A Short Story About My Ancestors” Neil Nystrom – SGSC Member
This presentation is a review of a story Neil wrote about his Father’s Immigrant Ancestors, and their Relatives, who settled in place called Greenleaf, in Meeker County, Minnesota. A couple of years ago, when he had researched his ancestors as far back as the Swedish Church Books allow, he asked himself, “what do I really want to do with all of this information”?
Because of the amount of info he has, it’s a daunting task to go through it all. So, he decided to look for smaller things that were buried in this big pile of ancestor info, and then write short informative pieces about each. He thought if they were short & interesting, they would get read by his relatives, and would also be fun for him to do.
Last year, he decided to focus next on his father’s immigrant ancestors that settled in Greenleaf, and he spent several months gathering together the details he had, and searching for new information. This turned out to be one the longest story he’s done, and he learned a lot as the story unfolded.
Note: Neil has provided his report on Greenleaf to our Member Showcase.
Neil Nystrom was born in Litchfield Minnesota (just a couple of miles from Greenleaf). Upon graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Army serving in the US Army Security Agency as well as in Germany and at NATO Headquarters in Paris. His career included Computer Programmer/Systems Analyst and Design and 30 years as Director of Management Information. He retired in 1997 and enjoys Genealogy and reading history and biographies.
“Swedish Newspapers in America” Beverly Harbourt
The Swedish American Newspaper Project is a presentation that examines a collaboration of the National Library of Sweden, the Minnesota Historical Society, the American Swedish Institute and the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center to digitize Swedish American newspapers. It provides information regarding which newspapers already have been digitized and what you might be able to find in searching them.
Beverly Harbourt grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska and attended the University of Nebraska. She is the past President of SGSC, an SGSC mentor, and an avid researcher of her Swedish and German roots. Bev is also involved in the indexing project of digitized Swedish Church records from some Colorado churches. She is the custodian of her family’s historical photographs and some of the family heirlooms, has been researching her ancestors for over 20 years, and has visited Sweden three times. She joined SGSC in 2009 following her retirement and subsequent move from the Washington D. C. area to Colorado.
“The SGSC Website” Karen Rademacher
This will be a brief overview of the SGSC website – what is there and how to access it.
Karen Rademacher has been interested in genealogy since the late 1970’s, when an aunt on her mom’s side of the family self-published a book about her family history, which is half Swedish. Karen took this as a challenge to research her dad’s side of the family, which is all Swedish. She has been actively studying her family history ever since. In 2013, she traveled with her husband and parents to Sweden and visited all of their ancestral villages and churches. Karen joined SGSC in 2014 and is currently the SGSC webmaster. Karen grew up in Arvada and graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in Civil Engineering. Karen and her husband Dale have four grown children and live in rural Weld County. She works at Northern Water in Berthoud as a water resources engineer.
Downloads and handouts available here.
