Woolyart - Mystery Swedish place name ?

[Jerome Farrell]

I discovered to my surprise recently that my great-great-great-great grandfather (c1778-1857) was Swedish. He was a sailor on a British East India Company ship and in 1807 at sea near India he was 'press-ganged' from that ship on to a British Royal Navy ship. He later settled in London. When he married in 1812 he could not write his name, so I suppose he was illiterate. In most records he is 'Christopher (or John Christopher) WENTLAND', or 'WINTLAND', but in the earliest record, for the East India Company ship, he is 'Christian VENTELING'. Ship records give his place of birth as Sweden (or 'Sweedland'!). In one ship's records his place of birth is shown consistently as 'WOOLYART', Sweden.
 
Can anyone help me identify this mystery name 'Woolyart'? I suppose it must be an Englishman's guess at the phonetic sound of a place name in Sweden, said by my ancestor when asked where in Sweden he was born.  I realsie that 'Sweden' in the late 1700s was bigger than Sweden today, so I suppose it's just possible this place was in some other part of the Baltic.
 
I have looked through lists of Swedish (and Finnish) towns and villages, but I don't speak any Swedish at all and don't know the conventions about Swedish vowel sounds or spelling. I see there are villages called Ullerud and also Ullared. Could this 'Ull-' sound a bit like 'Wool' in English?  I don't know what the letters A or O (with umlauts or the little circle on top) sound like in Swedish - would one of these be more like a Woo or Ooo sound in English?
 
Any help much appreciated. Also any ideas about my ancestor's likely original Swedish surname - Wentland or Venteling, or some hybrid?
 
Thank you very much for any help in solving this mystery.
Jerome Farrell - London, England

[Elin Wahlgren]

Wool means Ull in Swedish so mayby it´s right. Is it possible that woolyart is woolyard? Wollyard would be translated Ullgård or Ullagård. I don´t know if that helps?  
 
The letters å,ä,ö sounds like...
 
Å sounds like the english a in wall.
Ä sounds like A when you say the alaphabet.
Ö sounds like the english i in birth.
 
I don´t have any account on any internetpage at the moment so I´m sorry I cant help any further...

[Elin Wahlgren]

The name could be Wendtlandt. There is a discussion going on futher down on this page, I can ask your question in swedish if someone have found him in their reseach.

[Niklas Nyström]

Jerome- This is the only one with the name Ventland in the 1880 census:
 
Record 1880-22-31-622
 
Ventland, Karl Adolf
Arbetare
 
b. 1828 in (Stockholms stad, Uppland)
 
Man, married, father
 
Grubbe
Nora (Västernorrlands län, Ångermanland)
 
Place of birth (in the database): Stockholm
 
The rest of his family:
 
Ventland, Karl Adolf   1828   Father
Hermansdotter, Elisabet   1827   Mother
(Barn), Brita Stina   1858   Child
(Barn), Sigrid Märta   1861   Child
(Barn), Kristina   1863   Child
(Barn), Johanna   1866   Child
(Barn), Karl Erik   1872   Child
 
 
Pherhaps he can be a relative in some way?
 
regards / Niklas

[Niklas Nyström]

Jerome - after a brief scanning through familysearch.org I found a lot of hits on Wintland, and some more likely to have something to do with your ancestor than others, i.g. ;
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.2/9C4D-615/p2
 
Wintland seem to be a common name for many people borned in Prussia, (ore Preussen), Germany.
 
Could Woolyart be a Place in Germany???
 
 
This was also to be found according Winland;
http://www.4crests.com/winland-coat-of-arms.html

[Chris Bingefors]

In 1800 in Stockholm,there is a king´s stableman called J H Wentland (W equal to V in Sweden). Also, inte 1870s there is a woman called Wentling, she was born in 1814 and is a maid in the household of Lord Claes Fredrick Hugo Raab. This according to the Stockholm taxation records.
 
The Carl Adolf Ventland above is left at the Orphanage in Stockholm since his unmarried  mother died:
http://www2.ssa.stockholm.se/Bildarkiv/Egenproducerat/SE-SSA-0809/Barnhuspdf2008 /06_07717.pdf
 
There are also several entries for a Judge Wendtland and women named Wendtling.
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av izla 2011-10-17 22:15)

[Chris Bingefors]

In the estate inventory register for Stockholm there is a Jan Wendtland, son of soldier Wendtland and Elisabeth Jansdotter. Jan is the same name as Johan or John. He is listed in 1794 as in England!
Now, the problem is to find them in one of Stockholm´s many parishes and check the birth date of this Jan/Johan.

[Niklas Nyström]

This is from the 1851 census for England:

 
In this one it says that the place of birth for  this John is Milford, Pembrokeshire, Wales

[Lissela Carlson]

On the site of Stockholms Stadsarkiv you can search in the “mantalslängd”. (I do not know the English word, pls translate someone!) For the year 1810, the document has been photographed. You can see it here:
http://www2.ssa.stockholm.se/Bildarkiv/Egenproducerat/SE-SSA-0031/Mantalslangder 1810/M181001010039_150dpi.pdf
Under no 135 there is kontorsbetjent (=office servant) Joh. Wendlandt 32
If 32 is his age (I guess it is), he was born in 1778!
During the search, the district is given to be Stadens södra och västra (=the southwest part of the town). I do not know which parish that corresponds to. Does anyone else know?

[Chris Bingefors]

Stadens södra och västra is Storkyrko parish also called Nicolai

[Helene Jorsell]

Jerome correctly points out that 'Woolyart' is most likely to be the phonetic sound of a place name in Sweden. I don't think it is a translation of the name even though - as a coincidence - 'wool' does indeed translates into 'ull'.
 
'Woolyart' = Ullervad parish?

[Sven-Ove Brattström]

Carl Baltzar Wendtland was a captain at a merchant ship. He and his family lived in Maria parish, Stockholm.
He had several children, among them a son Johan Fredric born before 1777, but no son Johan Christopher.
Their address is interesting.
Street address was Wollmar yxkullsgatan 3.

[Kristina Gunnarsdotter]

According to Jerome his ancestor could not write his name when he married in 1812. I think this sounds peculiar for anyone and especially for a merchant's son.
 
Besides, his name is said to be Christian/Christopher in most records. Maybe his father's name?

[Jerome Farrell]

Thank you everyone who has responded. I will post some more comments later. It sounds like the mystery place Woolyart might start Ål- , as well as perhaps Ul-   .
Jerome

[Jerome Farrell]

Elin, Niklas, Chris, Lissela, Helene, Sven-Ore and Kristina: thank you for all your interesting & useful comments.  
 
I know where my ancestor John Christopher Wentland (JCW) was from 1807 until his death in 1857: all places in England, or at sea - so he must have left Sweden before 1807 (most likely as a young man in around 1800), and did not return to live there. Of course, he probably left parents, brothers etc still in Sweden though.
 
Many sources in England give his age, and all agree he was born about 1778, give or take a year or two.  
 
Niklas, the 1851 census you show above is indeed for JCW (here as 'John Wintland', in old age). By this time, I know that he was nearly blind and receiving a pension from the British navy. For a long time I thought his place of birth must be Milford, Pembroke (in west Wales) as it says here (but nowhere else). The records for this area have been checked, but there is no sign he or anyone else with his name was in the Pembroke area. I now suspect this reference to Milford, Pembroke is either a mistake, or possibly a deliberate 'red herring' given by him or his wife, to draw attention away from the fact that over 70 years earlier he had been born abroad (this might have affected his right to a pension). Milford is a well known port where naval people came and went.
 
I have now traced him through four ships, between 1807 and 1815, and in all these different records his birthplace is repeatedly given as Sweden (and in one ship's records always as 'Woolyart, Sweden'). I think this is much more likely to be the true place of birth, especially as these records are from when he was a young man and it was probably obvious he was not British (by 1851 he could probably pass as English - or any remaining accent might pass for Welsh, perhaps).
 
As for his surname it is Wintland by the end of his life (and this is what his children used), but always Wentland in the earlier records. When he married in 1812 he did not sign his name but just put a cross, which here generally indicates that someone could not read or write - quite common in England at that time.  
 
In the very earliest record I have for him, from July 1807, his name is Christian Venteling. He and 24 other sailors were forced to leave an East India Company ship and to join a Royal Navy one, off the coast of southern India. I have studied the lists of these 25 names from both ships and am certain that 'Christian Venteling' on the old ship and 'Christopher Wentland' on the new ship refer to the same man. I did wonder if Christian (almost unknown as a name here) was more likely to be his original Swedish name and that he changed it to 'Christopher', but I realise Christopher is also a common Swedish name. And perhaps he was simply known as 'Chris'!
 
In the many places his name appears in English records it is often 'Christopher', sometimes 'John Christopher' and sometimes just 'John'.  
 
He joined the East India Company ship in Portsmouth in February 1807, but I suspect he had previous experience at sea on other ships, either British or maybe Swedish (I have discovered that Sweden also had an East India Company!). It's interesting that there was a Carl Baltzar Wendtland who was a captain of a merchant ship and is the right age to be JCW's father. I am a bit doubtful though, as here you would expect the children of a captain to be educated a bit - and probably in Sweden too? JCW was a sailmaker on the ships he worked on and as explained, does not seem to have been literate.
 
It was illegal to force foreign men ('press gang' them) from a British merchant ship onto a Royal Navy one unless they had worked at sea for at least 2 years already (they only wanted experienced sailors) so this is another reason I think he was a sailor for a few years before 1807, somewhere.
 
Finally back to the name Woolyart. Yes, the ending   -yard  would be much more usual in a place name here than  -yart, so I think he must have said it with a strong 't' sound at the end. But maybe a 'd' at the end of a word in Sweden can sound like a t? - I don't know. I would love to find out more about where exactly he came from.
 
Any further comments are welcome. Thanks again. I see there is some discussion about the surname Wentland (and similar names) elsewhere on this site, but as it is in Swedish, unfortunately I cannot follow it.  
 
Jerome

[Jerome Farrell]

Elin, Niklas, Chris, Lissela, Helene, Sven-Ore and Kristina: thank you for all your interesting & useful comments.  
 
I know where my ancestor John Christopher Wentland (JCW) was from 1807 until his death in 1857: all places in England, or at sea - so he must have left Sweden before 1807 (most likely as a young man in around 1800), and did not return to live there. Of course, he probably left parents, brothers etc still in Sweden though.
 
Many sources in England give his age, and all agree he was born about 1778, give or take a year or two.  
 
Niklas, the 1851 census you show above is indeed for JCW (here as 'John Wintland', in old age). By this time, I know that he was nearly blind and receiving a pension from the British navy. For a long time I thought his place of birth must be Milford, Pembroke (in west Wales) as it says here (but nowhere else). The records for this area have been checked, but there is no sign he or anyone else with his name was in the Pembroke area. I now suspect this reference to Milford, Pembroke is either a mistake, or possibly a deliberate 'red herring' given by him or his wife, to draw attention away from the fact that over 70 years earlier he had been born abroad (this might have affected his right to a pension). Milford is a well known port where naval people came and went.
 
I have now traced him through four ships, between 1807 and 1815, and in all these different records his birthplace is repeatedly given as Sweden (and in one ship's records always as 'Woolyart, Sweden'). I think this is much more likely to be the true place of birth, especially as these records are from when he was a young man and it was probably obvious he was not British (by 1851 he could probably pass as English - or any remaining accent might pass for Welsh, perhaps).
 
As for his surname it is Wintland by the end of his life (and this is what his children used), but always Wentland in the earlier records. When he married in 1812 he did not sign his name but just put a cross, which here generally indicates that someone could not read or write - quite common in England at that time.  
 
In the very earliest record I have for him, from July 1807, his name is Christian Venteling. He and 24 other sailors were forced to leave an East India Company ship and to join a Royal Navy one, off the coast of southern India. I have studied the lists of these 25 names from both ships and am certain that 'Christian Venteling' on the old ship and 'Christopher Wentland' on the new ship refer to the same man. I did wonder if Christian (almost unknown as a name here) was more likely to be his original Swedish name and that he changed it to 'Christopher', but I realise Christopher is also a common Swedish name. And perhaps he was simply known as 'Chris'!
 
In the many places his name appears in English records it is often 'Christopher', sometimes 'John Christopher' and sometimes just 'John'.  
 
He joined the East India Company ship in Portsmouth in February 1807, but I suspect he had previous experience at sea on other ships, either British or maybe Swedish (I have discovered that Sweden also had an East India Company!). It's interesting that there was a Carl Baltzar Wendtland who was a captain of a merchant ship and is the right age to be JCW's father. I am a bit doubtful though, as here you would expect the children of a captain to be educated a bit - and probably in Sweden too? JCW was a sailmaker on the ships he worked on and as explained, does not seem to have been literate.
 
It was illegal to force foreign men ('press gang' them) from a British merchant ship onto a Royal Navy one unless they had worked at sea for at least 2 years already (they only wanted experienced sailors) so this is another reason I think he was a sailor for a few years before 1807, somewhere.
 
Finally back to the name Woolyart. Yes, the ending   -yard  would be much more usual in a place name here than  -yart, so I think he must have said it with a strong 't' sound at the end. But maybe a 'd' at the end of a word in Sweden can sound like a t? - I don't know. I would love to find out more about where exactly he came from.
 
Any further comments are welcome. Thanks again. I see there is some discussion about the surname Wentland (and similar names) elsewhere on this site, but as it is in Swedish, unfortunately I cannot follow it.  
 
Jerome

[Bo Johansson]

An adult Swede in early 19th century would definitely be expected to read, unless there was something really wrong with him. But he might not have been comfortable with writing with ink and goose-quill pen.
 
And even people who could write would sometimes sign with a sign rather than a signature.
 
// Bo Johansson

[Anna-Carin Betzén]

Has anyone considered places in Northern Sweden, starting in Vuol- etc (might be Finland too, like you say)?
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av acb 2011-10-19 10:10)

[Lissela Carlson]

I made a search on www.lantmateriet.se (KartSök och Ortnamn, search criterium: *jat (I also tested *jart which gave 0). The *jat-search gave two results, the interesting one was Vuojat. The pronunciation of that is very close to woolyart. But Vuojat seems to be a small village close to a lake far north in Sweden (west of Jockmock), i e far from the coast. The parish could be Kvickjock. But there I left that track...it did not seem very likely to be right.
There are certainly many places starting with 'Vuo' in Finland, just as Anna-Carin says. Maybe we should ask in a Finnish forum?!

[Niklas Nyström]

Jerome - if you provide us with the list of the other 24 sailors pherhaps one can find something in common between them? If there are several who where from Sweden pherhaps they can be tracked down as a group, i.g. coming from the same harbour or parish? Just a thought...

[Bertil Johansson]

Jerome,
If JC Wentland was still a swedish citizen when he died, his death might have been reported to the swedish authorities. Such information could then be looked for in the records of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, in the National Archives of Sweden.
 
Best regards
Bertil Johansson

[Niklas Nyström]

Jerome - an other thought... is it possible that his name, (not only Woolyart), also has been written down as it was proununced? I guess that if a swede prounance the surname i.g. Vinlund, it could sound pretty much like Wintland for a forrenger...

[Kristina Gunnarsdotter]

The island Öland produced a lot of sailors. On the island there is a parish Ventlinge (sometimes written with a W). I have seen the name Wentling in parishes in the area, both priests and sailors (koopverdiekarlar/kaptener).  
 
As said before, unless there was something wrong with him, he should have been able to write his name, or at least a sign. So he was probably not a priest's son.

[Chris Bingefors]

There is a Jan (John) Wentling bor in Mörbylånga, Öland 11 Oct 1775 and a brother, Kristian Wentling born 30 Jan 1767. Given that dates can be very variable later they may be worth looking into. They d not seem to marry or die in Öland, according to the PLF-CD of church records.
 
The whole family (his father Mårten is a ship´s captain) seem to disappear around 1780. But Christian is still in Mörbylånga, on his own until  1788 when there is anote that he has moved to Kalmar.
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av izla 2011-10-19 15:36)

[Chris Bingefors]

Christian Wentling marries in Kalmar 30 Dec 1791, he is then a sailor in the merchant navy. He has six children until 1802. In July 1805 his wife dies, she is then listed as a widow. I cannot find Christian in the death register, but he may be in the death book anyway. Otherwise he may be presumed lost at sea. There is no estate inventory for him, but there is ne for his widow.
 
 
The name Wendtland also exists here, by the way, as a Royal Navy enlisted private´s name.
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av izla 2011-10-19 16:07)

[Chris Bingefors]

Can Öland pronounced in the heavy dialect of the early 1800s concievably be Woolyart? Probably - more opinions on this needed

[Chris Bingefors]

It would be possible to see what happened to Christian Wentling in the sjömanshus (seaman´s charter) books, unfortunately they are not filmed and rather difficult to work with. But they are archived in Vadstena Archives (name of archive: Kalmar sjömanshus)

[Barbro Peterson]

My great grandmother was a daughter of Carl Adolf Wendtland born 1828 in Stockholm. Anna Christina Wendtland, his mother, was born 1784 in Sthlm. Her parents were the stableman Johan Hindrich, named above, and his wife Christina Flink.
 
For many years I have tried to follow my Wendtlands and even similar names like Weylandt. But I have never seen anyone called Christoffer or Christian.
 
I´m sorry! Hope you will find your Swedish relatives.

[Jerome Farrell]

Thank you, Bo, Anna-Carin, Lissela, Niklas, Bertil, Kristina, Chris and Barbro for these comments which I have read with much interest since I posted my last message (and sorry it got posted twice by mistake). Much food for thought here!
 
It's fascinating, Chris, that you have found a Christian Wentling from Öland who was a sailor. I am of course wondering if it's possible this could be my ancestor. Some pieces in this story do not quite fit, so I don't want to jump to any conclusion without more evidence. The age difference of around 10 years is one factor. My ancestor married (as 'John Christopher Wentland') on 13 July 1812 in the naval port of Plymouth. I have checked the record again and it does not state that JCW was a bachelor, so it is possible he was a widower from a previous marriage. But the Swedish records you mention seem to suggest that he had died before his Swedish wife, if she was later a 'widow'. I already thought that he was about 34 years old at marriage, so a previous marriage somewhere else (Sweden most likely) is possible. But if born in 1767 not 1778 he would be about 45 when married a second time ...
 
After his marriage in 1812, which I discovered was to the daughter of one of his fellow ship mates, he had 7 children in England (John, Andrew, Caroline, Mary Ann, Abigail, Thomas and Henry William), all born between 1813 and 1831 (his wife was a Caroline and her father was called Andrew). If he was born in Öland in 1767, this would make him over 60 when his last child was born.
 
Just to respond to a couple of other points from other messages: regarding the list of 25 sailors transferred from one ship to another in 1807, Venteling/Wentland was the only Swedish-born one. On a later ship, the HMS Armide, I noticed another Swede called Christopher Holdson, born Stockholm, Sweedland but there were about 350 sailors on this ship many from different parts of the world, so there is no reason for any connection between him and JCW.  
 
I think it likely that JCW came from a coastal area with a seafaring tradition. From what I have heard now, Öland seems a good potential candidate. When asked by a British naval officer where in Sweden he was born, JCW would (I suspect) have been more likely to give the name of a county, a province, an island or a large town rather than a small village which he knew no-one outside his own country would ever have heard of. So - perhaps - 'Woolyart' is a not-very-accurate guess by a British officer when he heard JCW say Öland...? They both have strong vowel sounds, followed by an L sound, and ending in a D or T, which can sound a bit similar.  
 
Thanks again everyone - I appreciate all your help,
Jerome

[Sven-Ove Brattström]

Here is another suggestion on where he was born.
This harbourtown was Swedish until 1815.
Wolgast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolgast

[Kenneth Larsson]

I recognized the name Baltzar, I have this family in my archive;
 
Stina (Kristina) Olsdotter. Born 13 April 1835 in Gylterud, Mangskog (S). Moved away to Katarina, Stockholm (AB) 1856 from Mangskog (S). Moved from Klara (AB) to Adolf Fredrik (AB). Address Kammakargatan 29. Bought Rinntorp in Mangskog 1886. Died 3 April 1926 in Adolf Fredrik (AB).  
Father Olof Andersson. Born 1 June 1800 in Tobyn, Mangskog (S). Died 5 March 1879 in Gylterud, Mangskog (S).  
Mother Kari Andersdotter. Born 3 April 1803 in Slobyn, Mangskog (S). Died 19 December 1880 in Gylterud, Mangskog (S).  
Married to Per Henrik Wendtland. Born 24 August 1824 in Motala (E). Lawyer. Died 5 July 1887 in Klara, Stockholm (AB).  
Children
Maria Henrietta Wendtland. Address Köningsberg, Preussen. Died unmarried 1932 in Königsberg, Preussen. Buried in the family grave at  Norra kyrkogården in Stockholm (AB).  
Carl Henrik Edvard Wendtland. Born 24 March 1865 in Klara (AB). Address Chicago, Illinois, USA.  
Baltzar Wendtland. Born 19 August 1875 in Jakob (AB). Priest. Address Väddö. Died unmarried 23 February 1926 in Adolf Fredrik (AB).  
 
Kenneth Larsson

[Stefan Zylberstein]

Sven-Ove. Nice idea, but it demands the g in Wolgast is pronounced as j... As is sometimes done in Swedish. Woljast would be almost there...
Im not born in Sweden, and I cant theoretical grammar, so I dont have the intuitive feeling of which g is pronounced as j...
What is the case here?
 
 
ps. I seems from the Wikipedia germans themselves says Wolgast, but if he was swede-speaking he may pronounce otherwise.
 
 
Another though. Earlier it was suggested  Ullgård or Ullagård. Not impossible, but this would probably be names of the farm where he was living/born.
Not necessarily any town...  Giving a precise adress, but difficult to find on maps.  

[Kristina Gunnarsdotter]

Re Wolgast:
A g before an a is pronounced as a g, not as a j. I also doubt that a person born in Pommern would say he is born in Sweden.

[Sven-Ove Brattström]

Every person that travelled within Sweden, or to another country, was required to have a written passport for that journey, issued at the place they were travelling from. These passports where recorded in books, and the books where archived.  I have been looking through some years around 1800 for Gothenburg, and sometimes Wolgast is sloppy written, looking like Wolyast , when the g is open at the top of the circle. I think that it is very likely that John were carrying such a passport, and that the information of his birthplace in the English records would come from reading such a written passport rather than from what he said to the recording officer.  I did also notice that it was uncommon for a ordinary sailor born in Sweden having more than one christian name, while it was quite common among ordinary sailors from Denmark, Pomerania and Preussen to have two Christian names. I noticed several Johan Fredrich, Johan Christopher and Johan Christian among those sailors.

[Lissela Carlson]

I have a theory. (Maybe you think that I have too much imagination). We have two brothers Christian and Jan/Johan/John Wentling. Christian was born 1767 and Jan 1775. Jan wants to go to sea but is too young for the position he wants but looks older. So he 'borrows' his brother's birth certificate (or similar paper) and pretends that he is 8 years older. That could explain the two names. (I have also noticed that one given name was standard among 'ordinary' Swedes at this time). This behaviour is similar to what he probably did in his old days, pretending to be born in Wales.  
And don't think that you could prove this. But maybe you could judge the possibility through looking into when and how the two names were used. If the theory is true, Christian/Christopher would be used more in the older documents (when he needed to be older) and John in the later. If 'our man' is the real Christian Wentling, he would have been 90 years old when he died. That is not quite impossible, but 82 sounds more likely to me.

[Kenneth Eriksson]

Maybe Öland is a good theory about this ancestors origin? I've been thinking about the spelling and pronounciation (like everybody else in this thread). An interesting question came to me: What if Öland not was spelled Öland in that time, how would it be pronounced by an English speaking person if it was spelled Oeland?
I can imagine if someone would like to read Oeland like Wooland he would put an letter as an y in the middle to it to give the name a more significant pregnancy.
 
Only my 2 cents.

[Jerome Farrell]

Thanks again, everyone who has responded. I think the Wolgast theory is a very strong possibility because I have found via Google Books that there are a number of instances where this town is actually written as Wolyast in English and French in the 18th/19th centuries.
 
I have re-visited our National Archives and looked at all the ship's records (very detailed, and not yet digitised) for HMS Armide between 1809 and 1815. The place name repeated many times (they made a 'muster' or register of all the 300 men on the ship every 2 weeks) is Woolyart, BUT I have found that in the very earliest of these books, for 1809, it is Woolyast. I think these place names may have been copied from each book into the next one and an error crept in and got repeated.  
 
Sven-Ove, thank you very much for this suggestion, as this was what made me return to view the originals in greater detail to see if it was possible the name had been Woolyast instead of Woolyart.  Also thanks for the information about the written passport which I did not know about - also the 'two Christian names' issue .
 
Just in case they are of interest to anyone reading this, I noted the names of all the other men on this ship (HMS Armide) between 1809 and 1815 and who were born in northern Europe:
 
Andrew STALLET aged 36, born 'Dantzick, Sweden'   (1809)
George PETERSON, aged 24 born 'Christian Sands, Norway'  (1809)
Peter SEDERHOLM, aged 22 born 'Stockholm, Sweden'  (1809)
Jacob FOSTER aged 50 born 'Rostock'  (1809)
Christopher HOLDSON aged 23 born 'Stockholm, Sweedland'  (1809)
John TYSON aged 28 born 'Vargin, Sweden' (also given as Vargill) (1809)
'Lauce alias Clauce' VINTERSTON (age missing) born 'Westerwick, Sweedland' (1810)
William JOHNSON aged 28 born 'Stockholm, Sweden' (1811)
Henry STEENBERGER aged 28 born 'Dantzic, Prussia' (1811)
John PESTLER aged 26 born 'Memel' (1811)
Chriatian H. VOLBER aged 32 born 'Sweden' (1811)
John CRAGER aged 23 born 'Dantzic' (1811)
Henry BERGMAN aged 29 born 'Hamburgh' (1811)
Andrew HENDRICSON aged 21 born 'Sweden' (1811)
Frederick TURNER aged 22 born 'Sweden' (1813)
John COLLETT aged 21 born 'Dantzic' (1813)
John PETERSON aged 20 born 'Prussia' (1813)
Frederick Pecksoff aged 26 born 'Rustrin, Prussia' (1813)
Erick Renderson aged 21 born 'Vassyn, Finland' (1813)
Peter DORGAN aged 25 born 'Stockholm' (1814)
Peter COULSON aged 33 born 'Norway' (1814)
 
In 1811 the ship also carried among the passengers a Peter TESCHE and Andere CARLSTONE 'belonging to Gustava, Swedish brig'.
 
I see that Wolgast/Wolyast was a part of Swedish Pomerania for a long time. If this is the right place of birth for my ancestor, as I now think likely, I wonder if he would have considered himself Swedish, or German, or Pomeranian ... ?  Would he have been a Swedish speaker or German speaker?  Does anyone in this forum have any experience of researching people in Wolgast - or suggestions about how I could take this further?  
 
Many thanks

[Sven-Ove Brattström]

Try this link: http://www.g-gruppen.net/
 
They can advice you of how to proceed.