Hi Klas,
Thanks for your wonderful help.
I just received some good helpful information from a researcher at Riksarkivet. It was related to a request for help in researching seaman house records that they have access to. They gave me more information than I had hoped for. They were very thorough.
According to Hästveda parish's birth book, a "Bengt" was born out of wedlock on December 27, 1838. His mother was Nilla Bengtsdotter. His father was unknown. In Hästveda household examination roll, August 27, 1838 is stated as Bengt's date of birth (again, no surname was given), and his mother was Nilla Bengtsdotter. So, they are the one and same person. I read a couple of reference books, which pointed out illegitimate births in the 1830s were 'normal' in Sweden.
In 1843, Bengt moved to Kulla, Linköping. His name at that time was given as Bengt Carlsson (good one - you are right!). Around the same time, his mother moved to her birth parish, Stoby. There were a few villages in Linköping with name "Kulla", and the researcher was not able to determine which one. I searched the register for the Swedish population between 1860-1947. There is many "Bengt Carlsson", but none fitting the above.
However, they found Bengt Carlos about 10 years later (1852) living in Hedvig Eleonora parish in Stockholm. He was a service boy in C J Grönvall´s houshold at Kaptensgatan 22. According to the household examination roll, he went by the name Bengt Carlos. We have no idea why and how the surname "Carlos" came about.
In 1853, Bengt Carlos moved from Hedvig Eleonora, Stockholm to Gävle. He was registered at the seaman house in Gävle. The following five years, he travelled mainly to England and London, where he was deregistered in 1858.
In 1859 and 1860 he was noted as "rymd" (that he had "escaped" and was not to be found) and in 1861 he was removed from the Gävle household examination roll (as marked).
In 1879 he seems to have returned to Sweden for a short period of time. That is what "4/3/1879" on the Gävle household examination roll means. His first stop was Gävle, from where he continued to Stockholm. He had to be notarised in Stockholm as having the name "Bengt Carlos".
According to my family lore, no-one in our family knew the name of my great-great grandfather. His first child, a son (my great-grandfather) was born in Northern China, in Dalian, near Newchwang, the northern-most treaty port in China, in 1870. Based on word-of-mouth, the older generation (2 generations before me) said they were told he was a Norwegian, possibly a Swedish, was a sea pilot, might have been a vice consul, and so on. He was said to have brought his son, 3 daughters and their Chinese mother to Hong Kong. The mother chose 2 children to live with her in Hong Kong, and he brought 2 girls to Scandinavia (possibly back to Newchwang or Dalian first before the forward journey), then back to North China to continue working and living his life. The first son, who had remained in Hong Kong, went to a good school in Hong Kong, and became a well-known and well-liked comprador in Hong Kong. It was said he knew who his father was but kept it a secret and, unintentionally, took the 'secret' with him to his grave. That is the story in general.
A grand-auntie, when she was aged 80 back in 1980, recalled one day she was once told that the ancestor name was "Von something, Von Carlos or Vingt Carlos". Using this information, I contacted the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the National Archives both in Norway and in Sweden last month. The name "Benedict Carlos" (b1880 in Newchwang, China and brought up in Sweden between 1895 and 1901)) came up as Vice Consul of Sweden in Newchwang (near Dalian, North China), who was Vice-Consul circa 1910-1920. I had known that, but didn't see any connection. The Swedish Riksarkivet then went further, saying "Bengt" is Swedish for "Benjamin". That was promising but still did not fall into the timeline I was looking at. Then they found a "captain Bengt Carlos" who had donated objects from China to the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm in 1885 (via Swedish frigate Vanadis). Further research by me unearthed a marriage record in England, of a marriage in Shanghai, China for Benedict Carlos that has captain Benedict (or “Bengt”) Carlos is the 'father of the groom'. I also determined from old Directories of China that Bengt Carlos was working as a pilot for Newchwang Pilot Company circa 1870 to 1910. He would have plied his ships up and down the China coast, staying mostly to the North part of China. The timeline fits. "Vingt Carlos" could be not right, it could have been "Bengt Carlos". As you have rightly pointed out, Carlos is a very rare Swedish name.
As for the 2 girls Bengt Carlos might have brought back to Sweden with him, which I am guessing would be in 1879 or thereabouts. I have not found any females with surname Carlos in the register for the Swedish population between 1860-1947, using birth years 1875 plus/minus 10 years, birth place in China (or deliberately mis-stated as birth place in Sweden), etc. I'm thinking it is possible he might have given them up for adoption in Sweden, or given them different surnames and left them with people he knew in Sweden, then returned to Newchwang, China to continue his work as a sea pilot.
Best Regards,
Michael
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