Sympathy Saturday - Lighting candles at cemeteries in Sweden

At the Pet Cemetery in Helsingborg

Today,  November 1st is All Saints Day in Sweden. A lot of Swedes goes to a cemetery lighting candles. This year it is even possible to light a candle through a webpage at certain cemeteries.


It is really a beautiful sight to visit a cemetery this day when its gotten dark, lit candles everywhere and even the local pet cemetery is filled with candles.

Råå kyrkogård, Helsingborg.
Erik och Lilly Kvist

Kropp Cemetery

Kropp Cemetery

Tombstone Tuesday - Carl Hjalmar Simonsson

In January 2012 I took about 300 photos of tombstones at the old cemetery in Helsingborg and uploaded them to Billiongraves.com.

One of the photos I took, was this one, the tombstone of Carl Hjalmar Simonsson who died only eight years old from tuberculosis.

Carl Hjalmar Simonsson 1875 - 1884

Carl Hjalmar was born on April 20, 1875 in Helsingborg. His father was beer salesman Johan Simonsson and mother was his wife Helena Holst.

Birth of Carl Hjalmar from ArkivDigital:
Helsingborgs stadsförsamling (Maria) CI:12 (1872-1878) page 166 

At the time of Carl Hjalmars death the family, Johan and Helena and their children Selma Amalia, Carl Hjalmar, Johan Bernhard, Anna Elvira and Alma Bernhardina was living at Fyrkanten nr 5.

Family of Carl Hjalmar from ArkivDigital:
Helsingborgs stadsförsamling (Maria) AI:71 (1880-1884) page 71

Carl Hjalmar died on February 10 in 1884 and was buried on February 12.

Death of Carl Hjalmar from ArkivDigital:
Helsingborgs stadsförsamling (Maria) FI:7 (1875-1887) picture 285 

I am not related to Carl Hjalmar.

My top 3 list - Estonian genealogy

Since my grandmother was born in Estonia I have been "forced" to dig into Estonian genealogy. I don't know Estonian which of course makes it harder. Everytime I see that an page is available in English I am happy since it makes it all so much easier for me to understand.

Looking into Estonian records it also helps if you have knowledge in German and Russian language since you might find documents in those languages as well. The top three sites I use when looking for information on my Estonian relatives are:

 1) Saaga

It is a free site to use but to see the records you need to register and the account is free. At Saaga I mainly look at the church records and something called Lists of resisents of Tallinn. You will find some helpful text at Saaga, like translations of typical record titles, for example Abielumeetrika means Parish register of marriages. One nice feature is that you can add bookmarks with links to records. I use that a lot. Easy to use, add, remove and add information about the bookmark.

Part of my list of bookmarks at Saaga

Here is an example from a birth book. Bottom right is the birth of my great grandfathers sister, Ida Seck.

Ida Seck birth

Ida Seck birth closeup.

Also at Saaga, an easy tool to copy a link to the record, to find the record of Ida Seck birth go to http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1296.1.354:27

Easy to get a link to the online record at Saaga

 2: Estonian Biographical Index

At Estonian Biographical Index it is possible to do searches for example a surname. You will see the result in a list and to look at the record it refers to you might need to pay with points that you buy. For example, 50 points will cost you 5 Euro. For me, it has been worth it. Even if the hit you get when you do a search is in an on-line free database I might not have found it otherwise.

Pricelist points as of January 19 2014

Here is an example where I did a search on the surname Verno. You will get some information in the list and then how many points it will cost you to see it. As you can see, at some places it says "all bought", that is were I have paid with points. Once I have bought it, I will be able to look at it again. With the information of fathers name and other information I am often able to know if the record is relevant to me or not.

Part of search results for last name Verno

Clicking on Voldermar Verno in this case will bring up a link to where the record is found, in this case at Saaga, in the Residents of Tallinn collection. Clicking on the link will take me to the record. Since it is within Saaga, I will have to login with my free account and then I am also able to add the record to my bookmark list.

Link to the record about Voldemar Verno

Voldemar Verno

Estonian Biographical Index have an ongoing crowdsourcing project indexing records where you can sign up as an volunteer. You can receive points as a reward to use in your own genealogy research. If you don't want points, since you did it for free it will also be free for others to look at it.  To read more about this indexing project have a look at http://nimed.ee/ühisloome/sisesta

 

3: Cemetery Portal of Estonia

As I have written about befere, when I was in Estonia in August 2013, I visited three cemeteries to look for headstones of relatives. Without this site it wouldn't have been possible. They have an easy to search database and if you find what you are looking for you will find a detailed map where to find the headstone.

If I use my great grandaunt Voldemar as an example again, doing a search I find out that he is buried at the Metsakalmistu cemetery in Tallinn, exactly at "vana osa, TK, 23/1".

Clicking at the Map button will give a detailed map where Voldemar was buried. I noticed that since I was there, there seems to be GPS-coordinates added.

Zooming out from the map shows that for me it would have been impossible to find Voldermar with out help. The cemetery is huge! I edited the picture below with the red arrow. Even with the help of those great maps I had problem finding the headstone of Helmut and Roosa Uggur which I have written about in another blogpost, http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2013/09/sibling-saturday-part-5-helena-verno.html. The map was correct but the stone was overgrown by big bushes.

You will also find other relevant information about cemeteries, like history, address, contact information and open hours.

Tombstone Tuesday - Iru Kodu Rahula

When we were in Estonia on vacation earlier in August this year we visited a couple of cemeteries. One was Pärnamäe. Walking around looking for the tombtone of my relatives I took a picture of this view. If anyone know anything about this specific area, please let me know.

Iru Kodu Rahula - Pärnamäe cemetery, Tallinn, Estonia

Tombstone Tuesday - Two blind siblings

Last weekend I was at a two day long familyreunion in Tving in Blekinge. Day two we all went to the cemetery in Tving to look at some tombstones related to the family. We went there a bit early so I had time to add the cemetery to Billiongraves.com and upload a couple of photos. It was a very sunny day, not suitable for tombstone photography.

Anyway, I found a really special tombstone, it says: Two blind siblings, Allgot 11 year, Matilda 20 year, 1899.

2 blind siblings, Allgot 11 year, Matilda 20 years, 1899.

I decided to try to see what I could find out. Allgot or Olof Allgot that was his full name was born September 25 1887, in Tving. He died January 26 in 1899. Matilda was born February 24, 1879, in Tving. She died June 17 in 1899. They were both noted as blind in the churchbooks.

Allgot and Matilda with thier parents and siblings.
Tving  (1895-1911) page 358 

Military Monday - Karl Spangenberg, 1928 - 1944, age 15

At Pålsjö Cemetery in Helsingborg, Sweden there is a area where soldiers from the WW are buried. There is one part where German soldiers are buried. Among the headstones Karl Spangenberg is found. He was born in 1928 and died only a couple of weeks before turning sixteen in 1944. You could also find a couple of stones where the soldier is unknown, or as the inscription says : Ein unbekannters Deutcher Soldat. I was at the cemetery today, adding it to Billiongraves.com. The weather was not optimal for headstone photography but I wanted to upload at least a few graves to start with.

Wilhelm Kunze 1915 - 1940
Karl Spangenberg 1928 - 1944

Georg Mannes 1909 - 1945
Ein unbekannter Deutcher Soldat

One area is called Commonwealth and here are Brittish, Canadian and Australian soldiers buried.

Commonwealth 

Commonweath plot

D A MacDonald, died August 30, 1944, age 23

What I love about billiongraves is the possiblity to geotag the photos so that you really know where the headstone is. I took and uploades 36 photos today and on the map you can really tell where in this cemetery you will find those headstones.

Other links:
Pictures of headstones and transcription of the inscriptions  http://www.hembygdshistoria.se/palsjo/index-e.htm
Pålsjö Cemetery at Find a greve : http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&GScid=1984447