Nels John Ohman

[Karen Pirozzi]

I am looking for descendents of Nels John Ohman and Emma Louise Lundberg. They are my great grand parents. My grandmother was Berna Magdalena Ohman, who came to America as a young girl. She had several siblings who stayed in Sweden: John, Eric, Alfred, Bertha, and Esther.  They lived in Batskarsnas.

[Eva Dahlberg]

Hi Karen, I tried looking for your family. I couldn't find a Berna or a suitable Öman or Öhman on the CD Emigranten which covers prople that emigrated from Sweden via Swedish ports or via Copenhagen in Denmark.
 
Båtskärsnäs is a village in the parish of Nederkalix in the county of Norrbotten in Northern Sweden.
 
Many emigrants left via ports in Norway and may thereby not appear on the Swedish CD Emigranten. In that case you can search port by port on http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/index-eng.htm ; you chose Source categories in the lower right corner and you'll find the emigrant protocols.  
 
Could you please specify when your grandmother was born and when she emigrated? If you don't have the info yourself already, you need to search the American census to find it.
 
I checked the household examination records for Nederkalix parish, village of Båtskärsnäs, for the period 1891-1899 that I have on loan for the moment but couldn't find the family.
 
However, after starting this letter, I came to think of a third possibility, as your grandmother's first name is rather unusual (Berna that is). The Swedish census for 1890 (and only that year, maybe 1900 is on its way for a fee) for the northern counties are put on the Internet, and I search for her name in the county of Norrbotten, and actually found them! In a different parish, but it's definitely the same family.
Their last name Öman may anytime be spelt Öhman as the 'h' is silent, the spelling differs.
Link:  
http://www.foark.umu.se/folk/bd/person.asp?lannr=25&forsnr=1&pnr=8363
 
All members of the family lived in the village of Hortlax in Piteå parish (it says Piteå moder, which is short for moderförsamling i e mother parish, however the parishes in Piteå were named city parish i e stadsförsamling and rural parish i e landsförsamling)
Nils Peter Öman born 1857, occupation is something in a saw mill
wife Emma Lovisa Lundberg born 1859
children
Ester born 1880
Berta 1884
Berna Magdalena 1887
Erik Mauritz 1889.
 
If they moved to Nederkalix (some 150 km north, not far) they did so after 1890, but they were not in Båtskärsnäs before 1899 as far as I could tell (it was a quick check for their last name).
 
I don't know how familiar you are with Swedish records, here are some tips:
http://www.genealogi.se/roots/
http://www.swedeninfo.com/tracing.htm
 
With the information from the census 1890 you can either check the church books at a Family History Center near you, for the material up to early 1900s.
 
The material for the 1900s is also available now. They have been filmed to microfiche and the originals are delivered to the Regional Archives in Härnösand, and available there. The records (as fiche) are available for loan or to buy only if they are older than 70 years old (when it comes to household exmination records the whole volume needs to be older than 70 yrs). Material younger than 70 yrs fall under the Secrecy Act, but the archives and the parish may look in them and give you harmless information.  
 
You have three or four options to find the exact fate of your relatives and dates for emigration.  
 
1) write to the regional archives and ask, they might bill you though; landsarkivet@landsarkivet-harnosand.ra.se  
 
2) buy the microfiche from SVAR through the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center at  
Augustana College (Rock Island, Ill.) at http://www.augustana.edu/administration/SWENSON/svar.html  
 
3) someone who researchs the area might help you and do a look-up. Then you better post under the province Norrbotten/Socknar Piteå as you get the area experts to find it.
You may be lucky that someone volunteers here. Unfortunately I don't have the possibility myself.  
 
Writing to the parish asking for a look-up is no idea as they only have copies of the material after ca 1895-1905, (earlier material is only at the archives) and you first need to pinpoint where they were at that time.
 
Best regards, and good luck.  
Eva Dahlberg

[Eva Dahlberg]

Hi again Karen, I made a minor mistake in copying the info from the census webpage regarding the name of the father in the family. Of course it's Nils Johan Öman born 1857, not Nils Peter as I wrote above.
 
God Jul,
Eva Dahlberg

[Bengt-Göran Nilsson]

Nils Johan Öhman, born 22nov 1857(Piteå lands), and his wife Emma Lovisa Lundberg, born 15 july 1859 (Piteå lands) with children came to Båtskärsnäs from Nederluleå 7 april 1902. He worked at the sawmill in Båtskärsnäs.
The daughter Berna moved to USA 13 sept 1905. Her brother Erik moved to USA 1909 but he came home 1914. He married 1917, Hildur Kerstin Olsson, born 10 april 1892 in Nederkalix. They had a daughter Maj Elly born 19 aug 1918 i Kalix.
Nils Johan died in Båtskärnäs 20 april 1918
Best regards  
Bengt-Göran Nilsson