Hi Elisabeth & Linda,
Excuse the 12-year delay on this thread.
This family became "Peterson" in the US, settling first in Galesburg, Illinois (1868) and then Chelsea Township in Fillmore County, Nebraska (1871). Johannes moved to the largest town in the area, Geneva, in 1907 after Sara's death in 1903. Their gravestones can be found in the Chelsea cemetery (
https://findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi/http%22/http/fg.cgi?page=vcsr&GSvcid=586727).
Regarding Johannes' surname, I found both "Persson" and "Petersson" in the old church books on microfiche at the National Archives in Arninge, Sweden. From what I could dig up there, I believe that Johannes' father was Peter Danielsson (born September 10, 1795 in Guttebo, outside of Fagerhult).
Johannes was a crofter ("torpare") living with the family in Klocketorp, outside of Story Aby (Hultsfred kommun). There's an historical marker there in the woods (
https://goo.gl/maps/PMsSb9zZDf62), see attached for a picture I took when I traveled there to Småland about 12 years ago.
My great grandfather was Constans Valfrid, known as "Walford C." or "W.C." in Nebraska:
If anyone knows of any siblings of Johannes (Jonas Petter 1821-03-29, Stina Lisa 1827-01-31, Anna Maria 1830-10-06, Johan 1834-08-06) or Sara , then it would be great to have my information forwarded to any of those individuals, whether they are in Sweden or the US.
I was born and raised in Nebraska, but have been living in Sweden since 1999, så det går lika bra att ta kontakt med mig på svenska. :-)
/Neal Peterson
Sigtuna kommun
neal.ted.pete@gmail.com