ssf logo blue Rötter - din källa för släktforskning driven av Sveriges Släktforskarförbund
ssf logo blue Rötter - din källa för släktforskning

Choose language:
Anbytarforum

Innehållet i inläggen på Anbytarforum omfattas inte av utgivningsbeviset för rotter.se

Författare Ämne: Hemadotter - Translation of word  (läst 2385 gånger)

2012-01-12, 20:28
läst 2385 gånger

Utloggad Scott Cannon

  • Anbytare **
  • Antal inlägg: 44
  • Senast inloggad: 2015-05-25, 18:38
    • Visa profil
In the parish moving in/out records, next to my great grandmother's name I see the word Hemadotter, which I assume refers to her occupation.
 
Also, piga is used in other cases. I assume this does not mean daughter and is indicating she was a maid.
 
So my guess Hemadotter would mean she was a house dotter or servant.
 
Is this correct?
 
Thanks,
Scott

2012-01-12, 20:52
Svar #1

Utloggad Bo Johansson

  • Anbytare ***
  • Antal inlägg: 247
  • Senast inloggad: 2019-07-05, 11:17
    • Visa profil
Hemmadotter = daughter at home.
 
Is perhaps the m over-lined? That means it is double.
 
Piga usually means maid, but in some parishes, at some times, a daughter-at-home could also be called piga.
 
// Bo Johansson
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av Bojoha 2012-01-12 20:54)

2012-01-12, 21:04
Svar #2

Utloggad Scott Cannon

  • Anbytare **
  • Antal inlägg: 44
  • Senast inloggad: 2015-05-25, 18:38
    • Visa profil
Thanks Bo.  
 
Yes, there is a line over the M in Hemadotter. Also, it is spelled exactly hemadotter with the line over the M.
 
What does daughter at home mean? An adult daughter still living at home or is it a servant or maid.
 
In the case of my great grandmother, she left her home to live in another city for 7 months in one case and then returned. She then left home again 6 months later to live in another city and stayed for 9 months and then returned. I assume this was for work reasons.
 
Thanks,
Scott

2012-01-12, 22:26
Svar #3

Utloggad Bibi Gustafson

  • Anbytare ***
  • Antal inlägg: 213
  • Senast inloggad: 2023-03-01, 22:30
    • Visa profil
Scott - my husband's grandmother (mother's mother) was a hemmadotter (stay-at-home-daughter). She was born in 1883, one of 6 siblings (reaching adulthood) and stayed with her parents until they died in 1917. We have a letter from one of her sisters telling that as she was the only daughter not married she was requested to take care of her parents as a piga and remain unmarried until they passed away. We do not know the reasons why she wasn't married when she was 25, but that's why she was the one asked. The sister writing the letter kind of feels sorry for her and is happy that she is released from her duties after the death of the parents. I suppose  that if all the daughters had been married they would have hired a piga to do the work.
Best regards,
Bibi

2012-01-13, 18:11
Svar #4

Utloggad Anna-Carin Betzén

  • Anbytare *****
  • Antal inlägg: 1112
  • Senast inloggad: 2019-10-28, 20:07
    • Visa profil
    • www.btz.se
SAOB, the official Swedish dictionary, says about hemmadotter: a woman (esp. peasant or working class) who (without having a profession) stays in the home with her parents

2012-01-13, 19:01
Svar #5

Utloggad John Bentley

  • Anbytare ***
  • Antal inlägg: 234
  • Senast inloggad: 2022-09-16, 21:10
    • Visa profil
Hi Scott
 
Anna-Carin above has the meaning of hemmadotter, which for me has often cropped up in marriage records signifying the woman was living at home unmarried with her parents.  In marriage records, the designation piga is also frequent, and there it always simply means unmarried girl.  The word is like the English maid however in having two parallel meanings, young unmarried girl and maid servant (as in housemaid, milkmaid etc).  For completion, the Swedish word dräng similarly has 2 parallel meanings, bachelor and farm hand.  In both cases the context usually tells you which applies, and it can often signify both meanings of course.
 
In marriage records the bride and groom are often described as piga and dräng, both then unmarried, no other meaning implied.  Household registers by contrast will list first the members of the family, then the farmhands, with female servants being a piga, and the male farmworkers being a dräng.
 
John
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av Johnb 2012-01-13 19:03)

2012-01-14, 03:17
Svar #6

Utloggad Ingela Martenius

  • Anbytare *****
  • Antal inlägg: 1489
  • Senast inloggad: 2013-10-25, 18:20
    • Visa profil
The exact meaning of piga and dräng is determined by where in Sweden it is used, and at what time. If we say late 1700's and southern Sweden (Skåne, Blekinge) piga does mean an unmarried girl while a girl working as a farmhand often was designated tjänstepiga - service girl (the same goes for men of course: dräng, tjänstedräng). However, move to late 1800's and middle Sweden (even as far south as Västergötland) and piga means only a girl working as a farmhand (the same goes for men, dräng).
 
Also, a piga in the country is a farmhand; she mostly did outside work, mainly tending the cows, goats, sheep (mucking out after them, feeding them, milking them) and when she works indoors it was always with the heaviest, dirtiest and most tedious work. It was e.g. the mistress who did the cooking, and who could use her time doing nice, clean, lighter indoor work like sewing, weaving and even embroidering. A piga could also be set to weave, but most often only for herself - she had her wages mainly in fabrics, which she had to weave herself.
In a town, a piga also did rougher work.
Indoor serving girls/women, who dusted and cleaned and cooked, were called jungfru, and this is perhaps more the equivalent of the English maid.
 
The easiest way to see if piga/dräng means a person in service or just an young unmarried person is to see if the vicar uses the words hemmadotter/hemmason on surrounding pages - if he does, then he means somone in service when he uses piga/dräng.
 
Hemmadotter/hemmason was something to be proud of until about the turn of the century 1800; after that the status slowly went downhill. After the mid 1800's a hemmadotter/hemmason increasingly meant someone left over, slightly stupid, very naive with little initiative, a passive person who the world passed by. Someone to be pitied by a loving sibling (who at the same time was very happy it wasn't her/him). Even very well-off farmers' children went away to serve for a few years by the end of the 1800's; it was thought of as being part of their training - to see something of the world, learn new ways of doing things, just like a journeyman craftsman. This included emigrating and being away for a few years, eventually perhaps returning and taking over the farm (some 1.3 million Swedes emigrated, 200.000 came back to stay).
 
Ingela

2012-01-14, 04:49
Svar #7

Utloggad Scott Cannon

  • Anbytare **
  • Antal inlägg: 44
  • Senast inloggad: 2015-05-25, 18:38
    • Visa profil
Thank you everyone for your explanation here. It has been very interesting.
 
Let me give a little more context about the usage of these terms in my situation.
 
The years were about 1901 - 1903. My 21 year old unmarried great grandmother moved away from her widowed mother and 12 year old sister to other cities approximate 100 and 180 km away. She stayed 9 months and returned home for 6 months then moved again for 12 months and then return home for 6 months before finally moving to North America for good.
 
In the parish Inflyttningslängd and Utflyttningslängd she is listed as a hemmadotter in some cases and a piga in others. I assume she moved away for work reasons.
 
Within this context, does it sound like these titles described her occupation or her living situation at home? The parish was located in Uppsala county.
 
Many Thanks,
Scott  

2012-01-14, 11:46
Svar #8

Utloggad John Bentley

  • Anbytare ***
  • Antal inlägg: 234
  • Senast inloggad: 2022-09-16, 21:10
    • Visa profil
My view is that she was named as hemmadotter (unmarried daughter of the family) when moving away from her home farm, and piga (both meanings of maid) when returning.  In early marriage records for country areas, girls were mainly piga or widow, in later records they can be piga or hemmadotter, and the various other terms for farmers daughter become more frequent.  Certainly from 1900, girls might well be eg seamstress, and increasingly when including larger villages and towns, servant, home help, factory worker etc are included. My guess on this basis, if they were town dwellers was that she did domestic work of some kind.  
 
If you want an idea of what a piga did on a farm, read the first of Vilhelm Mobergs emigrant books, describing farm life very graphically, where a piga did much more indoor work on balance while the dräng only did the outside animal and crop work.  Farm life was difficult and sons and daughters and farmhands together were kept hard at work in all seasons.  I disagree completely with Ingela in that certainly in Halland, the very few girls who were called jungfru at marriage were those of higher status, daughters of eg priests or professional people.  (Confirmed by examination of the over 125,000 marriage posts from 1680-1935 on the Hallands befolkning 2011 CD).  By contrast the in and utflyttning längder have long lists of those named as piga and dräng, nearly all farmworkers,  moving from farm to farm to work in later years.
 
John
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av Johnb 2012-01-14 12:04)
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av Johnb 2012-01-14 12:09)

Innehållet i inläggen på Anbytarforum omfattas inte av utgivningsbeviset för rotter.se


Annonser




Marknaden

elgenstierna utan-bakgrund 270pxKöp och Sälj

Här kan du köpa eller sälja vidare böcker och andra produkter som är släktforskaren till hjälp.

Se de senast inlagda annonserna