Erik Sursill -- translation please

[Nancy Wiberg Jones]

I found this entry about my ancestor Erik Sursill in Anbytarforum.  Would someone be so kind as to translate the information for me?
 
 
Erik Ångerman-Sursill (1480-1550). Bonde i Teg i Umeå socken, men ångermanlänning till börden. Han var landsköpman, och under befrielsekriget 1521-23 fick han kontrakt på att leverera stora mängder livsmedel till Gustav Vasas arm?. Han blev mäkta impopulär då delar av den mat han levererade visade sig bestå av den ångermanländska specialiteten surströmming. Detta ledde till att han gans öknamnet Erik Sursill - ett tillnamn hans barn märkligt nog upptog som släktnamn. - - -  
 
Thank you.

[Ann Little]

Hello Nancy,
 
Here is my translation of the entry about your ancestor Erik Sursill.
 
 
Erik Ångeman-Sursill (1480-1550)Farmer at Teg in Umeå parish but born in the province of Ångermanland. He was a country merchant, and during the 'war of liberation' 1521-23, he was given the right (by contract) to deliver large quantities of food-stuffs to Gustav Vasa's army. He became hugely unpopular when it was discovered that a big part of his supplies consisted of (surströmming) fermented herring. Because of this he was given the nickname 'sourherring'-a name his children oddly enough kept as a family name.
 
Kind regards,
Ann Little

[Ann Little]

I should add, that 'surströmming'(fermented herring) as it says in above entry, is a speciality of the Ångermanland province. It has a very unpleasant odour, but is supposed to taste very nice. I have never tried it myself, so I don't know.

[Nancy Wiberg Jones]

Thank you so much Anne.  This is a fun bit of history to add to my family file.
 
All my best,
 
Nancy

[Rune Edström]

Surströmming is werry, werry good fisch.
mvh
rune

[Birgit Söderström]

Fråga ang döda

[Anders Andersson]

Nancy, you may have found out already that Erik Sursill is also the progenitor of a very large, documented family tree, early recognized because Erik Sursill's daughters married different priests in Finland (which was politically an integral part of the Kingdom of Sweden back then). The 19th-century work Genealogica Sursilliana contains many factual errors, but it was revised and published as Sursillin suku (in Finnish) around 1970.
 
I'm myself a descendant of Erik Ångerman Sursill, via a woman Susanna Watz who was born in Vasa, Finland, in 1661 and later moved to Järlåsa (a parish near Uppsala, Sweden), though I have yet to study Sursillin suku to find out exactly how Susanna descends from Erik Sursill. Are you a Sursill descendant too?

[Anders Andersson]

Ah yes, you already said you were a descendant; I didn't look close enough...

[Nancy Wiberg Jones]

Anders, I am descended from Katarina Östensdotter Sursill b: 1538 in Umeå, Västerbottens Län, Sweden
She married Henricus Laurenti Littoinen Lithovius
(a Finish priest).
 
My line remained in Finland until Katarina Arvidsdotter Rothovia (b: 1654 in Finland) married Andreas Brynolphi Forsaeus (b.1635 in Ör, Älvsborgs Län, Sweden).  The family then remained in Dalsland until my grandfather emigrated to the US in 1923.
 
I find it curious that Katarina Rothovia met and married someone from such a distance at that period of Swedsh history (about 1675)?  Does it seem unusual to you?
 
Best regards,
 
Nancy

[Johan Rson Sjöberg (Sukulainen)]

Nancy, I think your ancestor should be named Henricus Laurenti Lithovius. Littoinen was probably his name before he latinized it to Lithovius.
 
I did see an Ahnentafel (Ancestor table) a few years ago, in a publication called Svenska Antavlor, that there was a descendant of Erik Ångerman Sursill who was married in Dalsland, I think that was your ancestress.

[Anders Andersson]

Nancy, I have mostly traced ancestors who have remained in the same province (or even parish) for generations, and thus I also found it interesting that Susanna Watz had come all the way from Vasa in Finland to the rural parish of Järlåsa (which is located west of Uppsala, Sweden. I later learned here on Anbytarforum that she had been staying in Umeå (on the opposite side of the Gulf of Bothnia as seen from Vasa) around 1684, before appearing in Järlåsa records in 1691.
 
Finland was the scene of war (between Sweden and Russia) on a number of occasions, and it quite naturally led to refugees relocating to other parts of Sweden/Finland, but I'm not aware of any particular event around 1675. There were famines in Finland in the 1690's, and we had the Great Nordic War in the early 1700's.
 
For further questions regarding the Sursill family tree (rather than mere translation issues), I suggest that we use the existing discussion Släkter: Övriga släkter S: Sursill even though its default language is Swedish; inquiries in English are just as welcome there and will perhaps benefit a wider audience.

[Monica Trennéus]

Hi Nancy!
Andreas Brynolfi Forsaeus, was born in Forsebol, Ör. He is my fm fm fm ff f, Andreas son Sven was a farmer in Järbo parish. Andreas was a priest-student at Åbo University 1669, where he met Catharina Rothovia. My grandparets had a summercottage in Forsebol, Ör, they had a beautiful wiew over the lake Örssjön. My father was born in Ör.  
 
Best regards,
 
Monica

[Eva Barchas]

Nancy,
In reply to your question as to the distances your
ancestors moved.  I also was astonished when I found that people back then really moved around a great deal.  As to my own ancestors, the farmers usually remained in one parish or neighborhood but not necessarily on the same farm through the generations.  Now to my more illustrious ancestors, the clergy, they seemed to move from one end of the country to the other, according to where the archdiocese decided to place them. It seemed that the educated, in general, experienced the IBM (I've been moved) syndrome.  I find this as early as the early 1500's.  When I look at my Finnish ancestors, they moved from the Finnish/Russian border across Sweden and in to Norway and back to Sweden.  Of course the borders might have been placed a little differently in earlier times.  My Finns moved between the late 1500's through the 1600's.  Then, they more or less remained where they had found land to their liking, for about 300 years.  It is fascinating to see what a constant migration there has been through out history.
 
Best Regards,
Eva Barchas

[Nancy Wiberg Jones]

Rune, Birgit, Anders, Johan, Monica, and Eva,
 
Thank you all for your information and suggestions.  The responses on this website consistently exceed my expectations.  
 
Thanks Monica for sharing our common family history.  And Rune, I promise to try surströmming if I ever get to Ångermanland.  
 
Best regards,
 
Nancy