Confused

[Scott Satterfield]

I'm looking at GID 2395.20.80300 and trying to figure out the relationships there.  My ancestor is Lars Abrahamsson, born 31 May 1748.  His wife was Catharina Jönsdotter.  What are these others in relation to them?

[Ingela Martenius]

Not a very legible entry, no. I have my suspicions about this clergyman, he's made quite a few errors I think, and is generally not very careful...e.g. Lars' birthyear distinctly ends in a 4 and his wife's birthday seems to be on the 3rd day of the 14th month... Also he mixes children of the household with servants in a way I've very rarely seen.
 
Daughter Stina - born in 1759 (which is of course impossible)
Son Pehr - born (and died) in 1778
Son Lars - born in 1779
Maid (piga) Christina And. (Andersdotter) - born in 1750
Maid Christina Larsd. (Larsdotter) - born in 1762
Son Jonas - born in 1784 (son of Lars and Catharina)
Maid Ingrid Larsd. (Larsdotter - I think) - born in 1764
Daughter Christina - born in 1787 (daughter of Lars and Catharina)
Farmhand Anders Andersson - born in 1768
Brother-in-law (of Lars) Jonas Jönsson - born in 1767
Maid Stina Larsdr (Larsdotter) - born in 1762
 
Now, all of these people weren't there simultaneously. You get a pretty good idea who was there when by checking if there is an exam date for a particular year (since this is the late 1700's, servants were hired from St. Michael's day, 29 Sep., and for an entire year (minus one week leave)). And I'm sure you know that people were examined (reading, knowledge of Christianity according to the tenets of the Swedish Church) once a year after they were confirmed (which usually - but not always, it could be later but never earlier - was done at 15).
 
Ingela

[Scott Satterfield]

Many thanks!  I'm glad that it wasn't just me getting confused - it really is kind of mixed up.  I'll look further.  It looks like Lars was married before to me.
 
Thank you for the information on the examination.  I am interested on the information that they were examined on.  Do you happen to know where I might find that in english?
 
So many thanks!

[Scott Satterfield]

Also, see GID 2395.19.67100.  It still says that Kerstin born in 1759 is a daughter.  The question is, whose?

[Ingela Martenius]

Well, they were examined in the Little Cathechismus (Lilla Katekesen). That was the Ten Commandments, and the explanations (each Commandment is followed by the feared question What is that? and you have to know the answer by heart and be word perfect in your answer; the explanations all begin with the set phrase We should fear and love God, so that....). Also the Confession - with it's attendant explanations; the Confession is divided into three parts - God the Father and the Creation, the Son of God and the Redemption, the Holy Spirit and the Sanctification; the explanations are terribly long and you just hope that you won't be selected for this part.
Then there was the Lord's Prayer (each line with an explanation). This was the staple so to speak, but the cathechismus also contains the sacrament of Baptising and the sacrament of the Altar - each with pages of explanations (but I think this was mostly used for the reading tests).
When you were confirmed you were examined, and then each year the vicar would travel from farm to farm and all the (confirmed) residents of that farm would be examined again. At the same time you had to prove that you could read; the vicar used the Bible, the Book of Prayers (in Sweden called the Book of Hymns (Psalmboken, which also contains the Cathechismus) or maybe one of the popular collections of sermons (postilla). A well-to-do farm would have all of these books; most people, unless they were very poor, had a Book of Prayers; it was a very common, not to say mandatory, gift e.g. when marrying.
And yes, everybody could read, after a fashion anyway. The Church Law of 1686 (which provides us genealogists with all those nice records) also stated that everybody should be taught to read. So everybody was, every single person - no exceptions (it has been estimated that already in 1723 more than 90% of the population under 25 was literate). This was so that everybody should be able to read the Bible by themselves, a very important tenet in all Lutheran churches (it comes directly from Martin Luther himself) - and the cause of all translations of the Latin Bible into the vernacular.
 
As for the actual texts in English...well, I think any Lutheran church in the States can provide you with something very like the Little Cathechismus. Perhaps the Swanson Center has the actual texts translated into English.
 
About Kerstin/Stina: wasn't she a sister of Lars? I think maybe this muddled vicar has just copied the previous entries, from before Lars took over, and never bothered to change her status...
I'm sure you've already discovered that some vicars were very careful and methodical about record writing while others didn't care at all, or were confirmed alcoholics or something (this was after all the age when you started off your day with a nice big shot of aquavit...this included quite small children...). In one of my parishes the vicar simply forgot to record any of the weddings taking place in 1791...and in one parish in Värmland, the vicar was nearly blind but refused all assistance...
 
Ingela

[Judy Olson Baouab]

Hi Ingela,
 
All Lutheran children in the U.S. have to memorize Luther's Small Catechism, and I remember a couple of years of Saturday morning classes with weekly examinations on the part we were studying (and probably we studied other religious matters too).
 
When we were ready for confirmation, we had an examination one evening in front of the congregation (probably mostly our parents and relatives) and our pastor asked us the same questions. It was scary, but we all passed and were confirmed on a Sunday shortly after that and had our First Communion at that time or perhaps the following Sunday.
 
There is a longer version of Luther's Catechism. I've seen it and actually, I think I have a copy of it somewhere. My dad lived in a farm community in Canada when he was the age for confirmation. They didn't have a Lutheran Church there, although they did attend a Protestant Church. He might have been confirmed there. I have no idea. I was very surprised to discover when searching some church records at the Swenson Center that he was confirmed as an adult in the Lutheran Church, and I think his catechism book was the longer version. I will have to check the unheated attic (actually just a crawl space reached by a built in ladder in the garage) and it is probably too cold up there right now.
 
You are absolutely correct that any Lutheran Church in the U.S. should be able to provide a copy of Luther's Catechism. It is still required learning for children (about age 14-15) before they become adult members of the church.
 
Your explanations are always interesting. I enjoy reading them.
 
Judy

[Scott Satterfield]

Ingela,
 
Thank you so much.  I too am enlighted by your explainations and enjoy reading them very much!  Thank you so much for taking the time.
 
One more question - why are there so many marriages on Dec 26th?  In some books it seems that the majority of weddings in the year took place on that day.
 
Thanks again!

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

One explanation is that people had time off for the Christmas holidays, as the 26th of December is called Annandag Jul [2nd Day of Christmas] and still a holiday. Also they already had lots of food prepared, so it was easy to have a party.

[Ingela Martenius]

Hi Judy,
 
Interesting to hear that the US Lutheran Church is in some ways more traditional than the Swedish one.
I was confirmed in the 1970's and at that time there were two options: you either read (prepared) during the fall, winter and early spring and were confirmed at Easter (the old, traditional way), or you went to a summer camp where you had about three lessons in the morning and after that there were the usual camp activities (the modern way; but as a preparation you still had to attend church services 15-20 Sundays the preceding year - and write reports on them that had to be signed by the clergyman holding that particular service). The lessons were very straight-forward - the Bible (mostly the New Testament) according to Luther, and very little, if any, discussion on what it meant or any other religious or ethical question.
The exam was a set-up: we knew roughly what questions each of us would get; we even had a couple of particularly dim students who were told exactly what they would be asked (the questions with the shortest possible answers). When the exam part was finished, the church service started and we had our first Communion.
As I remember it my mind was mostly taken up with clothes: all the girls wore white dresses as a matter of course (and this being the 70's our skirts were very straight and short, not ideal for kneeling in - but the male part of the congregation probably enjoyed it) and the big questions were if we should have white stockings or natural/brown, and if we should wear white gloves.
 
The old, traditional way of doing it was that you read (that's what it was called to read for the vicar (att läsa för prästen) - which has some people believing that this was when people learnt to read: no such thing, in fact one of the reasons why you might not be admitted to the preparations were that you couldn't read well enough), starting after the harvest and finishing at Easter. The exam was a two-day affair - just like yours, Judy - the first day, Saturday, being the exam and the second being the first Communion. In the old days it was a real rite of passage: after this you were adult in the sense that you were now expected to be able to work a full day; you also got a full, adult wage (though the lowest rate of course). So this was your first time in full adult dress. Where national costumes (folkdräkt) were worn, this was the first time the girls had an adult headcovering, though in a young-girl variation (the hard silk hat would e.g. often be light blue, a colour no married woman could wear). Where national costumes were not worn, the girls had black dresses (made of as fine materials as the parents could afford) and the boys wore their first long trousers, their first suit. Starting in the cities (not extremely conservative Göteborg of course) during the last decades of the 19th century, girls started wearing white dresses instead of black. At first they wore the white dress only when standing in the aisle (när de stodo på gången), i.e. during the exam (we, being lax modern youths, were allowed to remain in the pews), and changed to a black dress for the Communion next day. During the first decades of the 20th century this changed to the girls wearing white dresses throughout.
 
There is a longer version of the Cathechism - but I must confess I've never seen it. Both Cathechisms were written by Martin Luther, the Major one was intended for the clergy and for teachers, while the Minor one was for teaching children (Luther intended it to be an easy-to-understand compilation...well, perhaps it was in the early 16th century).
 
Ingela

[Judy Olson Baouab]

Our examination wasn't in the main part of the church. It took place in the large room where Sunday School classes were held (before the church built a lovely new addition with lots of classrooms). I remember sitting at a large table (and luckily, my back was to the congregation, since I was already scared to death and didn't need to look at them.)
 
I remember that when we were studying for Confirmation, our pastor made us take notes on his sermons and give a neat copy to him on the following Saturday at our classes. He assumed we would be naughty, so we had to sit in the first few pews where he could keep an eye on us. ;-) (He had good reason to think we might be naughty. We always behaved for him, but in our second year of confirmation classes, the pastor took the beginning class in a downstairs room and a student pastor worked with us in an upstairs room, since we were a smaller group. We were rather inattentive, to put it mildly. Then the pastor would walk in to calm us down, but as soon as we heard him coming up the stairs, we would act as angels. He would leave and the poor student pastor had the same chatter and giggling as before. I have often wondered if we drove that poor man out of the ministry. Children can be so cruel.)
 
I remember wanting to giggle while taking these sermon notes and others had the same desire. (The whole class sat together, away from parents.) I was afraid to look at friends because then I would giggle. That would have resulted in a fate worse than death, because not only would the pastor be annoyed but my father would have killed me.(not literally, of course, but I can only imagine what horrible punishment would have happened to me.) Luckily, I managed (barely) to control the desire to laugh. Some didn't.
 
It's interesting that you had to write reports on church services too. I had always thought that was just a whim of our pastor, but perhaps not.
 
It has been far too many years since I was confirmed but I also remember thinking about what to wear at this occasion. I do remember a family party held in my honor after Confirmation/First Communion.
 
I don't remember being told which questions I would be asked. Perhaps the minister made sure the right children were asked whatever questions he thought they could handle. I don't see how any child could have been unable to pass the test, however. Each Saturday for two years we had to individually prove in oral examinations that we had learned our homework for that week, so we had much reinforcement.  
 
Thanks for telling us how modern Swedes prepare for Confirmation and how it was done in the past. It is very interesting to read your information.
 
Judy

[Ingela Martenius]

Thank you Judy! Very interesting to compare notes on church - or any other - traditions and see how well the Swedish ways were preserved!!
 
Ingela