Tracing fathers of illegitimate children -- impossible?

[Glen Johnson]

Does anyone have any advice on tracing the father of an illegitimate boy? His mother was a servant for a wealthy family in Tvååker. The family oral history says that the son of the master of the estate got her pregnant and her boy was born in December of 1896. The mother emigrated to the US a year later to join her parents. We don't know the name of the people she worked for.
 
The mother's name is Hilma Amanda Johansdotter.
The boy's name is John Albert Johanson.  
 
Hilma's father's name is John Otto Johansson.  
 
Hilma and her son both emigrated to the US using the name Johanson.
 
The boy's birth/baptismal records do not indicate who his father was.
 
Any ideas? There must be quite a few researchers in this situation because when we were looking through the birth and baptismal records we found that one in seven children born did not list fathers.
 
Thanks.

[Torbjörn Norman]

Tvååker is a parish about 1 Swedish mil south of Varberg city in Hallands län. Near the railway and the sea. It was usually masterpeoples had summerhouse where the family lives in summertime and in the city in the winter. If it is the master he and his family can been writed in Varberg too.
 
Tvååker belongs to Himle Härad and belongs now to Varberg kommun.
 
I live far from Varberg so I can not help you any more.
Torbjörn i Björklinge

[Carolyn Johnson Eccles]

I would suggest an article in the magazine Swedish American Genealogist Vol.XII 1992 called Father Unknown-What to Do? by Elisabeth Thorsell(you will see her name on this web site). Reprints available through Swensson Center at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois. The article addresses techniques for earlier years than you are looking but still may be helpful to you. Until mid 1850's it was against the law to engage in sex before marriage and a fine was levied for illegitimate children. You are looking for a father after that time so you cannot use that approach but she talks about other avenues to look at also.
Carolyn Johnson Eccles
California,USA

[gustenj]

As you know the name of the parish, I would recommend you to take a lock in the  churchbook where every birth is recorded . In that record normally the family of both  husband and every servant use to be recorded on the same page.There use to be supplements where information of the father is to be found, but normally the name of the father is recorded in book of birth.

[Maxine]

Hi Carolyn,  
Your story is so similar to mine My great  
grandmother and grandfather were John  
Johnson and  
Anna L ( Peterson ) Johnson in Sweden.  
Anyway,  
as my story goes; My Great grandmother(  
Anna) an  
d her children (one my grandmother) left her  
husband John Johnson behind in Sweden  
because he  
got a young girl pregnant. She came to  
America  
and raised them here herself.  
I just thought your message was similar since  
the  
name of John Johnson was invovlved.
Maxine