NULL
Skriv ut sidan - Place name in Northern Sweden
Anbytarforum
Titel: Place name in Northern Sweden
Skrivet av: Alex Duncan skrivet 2022-07-29, 03:51
Hello from Australia,
I'm trying to track down the origins of my Swedish maternal great-great-grandfather, John Ostrom. I have been unable to find immigration/emigration records or passenger lists that would help (some are close but that doesn't help with my question), but I do have a copy of his naturalisation application where he declares that he arrived in Australia on the City of Corinth in 1878. His birthday was 21/5/1858. I am trying to narrow down my search of parishes and so this is a geography question.
His naturalisation application, in his own hand, contains the place where he believes that he was born. My interpretation of the handwriting is that this a place called Jedi By, but this does not seem to exist in modern Sweden? I think "By" means village but seems to never be a separate word in the place name, but he was quite deliberate about it. "Jedi" doesn't seem to translate to anything, but does provide amusing search results.
I have attached a portion of the scanned document, hopefully enough to see how he writes certain letters. I had a theory that the second letter is not an "e" but a handwritten form of a letter that we don't use in English but it hasn't produced any leads for me. This may not be old Swedish handwriting anymore and this is from his second naturalisation application (first one sank on a boat not far off our coastline, apparently) which he made when he was 52 and had been living in Australia for 32 years so is probably affected by that.
I have another theory, which is based on many DNA matches surrounding the Ångermanland region (but none have confirmed from their end when I contacted them) and also based on some "non-existent persons" (obifintliga) registers that mention a Johannes Åström with the same birthdate who was from Gideå, Björna. Could Jedi and Gideå sound similar with a Swedish pronunciation?
The other possibility which I wish to explore is if this place name may have existed in 1858 or if it could be the name of a farm or if it is simply a generic reference to geographical feature (which then does not help me much at all, but at least I will know).
I'll be grateful to learn anything at this point, narrowing down the parish where someone was born and lived helps a lot in our research. At least he was fairly clear about being from Sweden!