Researched by Helle Jorgenson, Copenhagen, Denmark
Here is the probate and the translation. The translation isn’t what I would have liked. A lot of things I have no idea of what is because it’s not something we have anymore. But I think some of the things are for cooking and making yarn or weaving and even if they had just the tiniest piece of land once they may have saved a couple of things used for grain.
The oven she has was a tall and black on where you put coal in. We actually had one when I was a child and my mom had to go down in the basement and get a bucket of coal. Back then you would always have a kettle on top of the oven because we didn’t have hot water so this way there was always hot water for the dishes or getting washed in with a water basin in the morning by the oven. I remember that. I actually remember being small enough to sit in a basin in the sink being washed by my mom. I was only a couple of years old like 2, but I remember my mom’s little sister who was still just a kid standing there watching me being bathed and I really wanted her to go away. My mom had no idea of course as I didn’t tell her until I was older.
There is one thing that bothers me about this probate. You see if you had sweet children or even fair children they would say that your parent could stay in what we call "uskifted bo" which means that nothing happens until the other parent dies and the remaining parent gets to keep her belongings until she dies and then they can have it. But it doesn’t say that. What kind of children would watch their mother’s belongings being sold so they could have a little money. I am hoping to find a probate from the wife a year later where I can see she got to keep her stuff. I feel really sorry for her. I really don’t understand how anyone can make laws like this. Two people have kids and they take care of them and bring them up and often get nothing in return so what these 2 people own should be theirs to do with what they will. I don’t see why kids have to come and empty the house as if they deserve to. So let’s hope they let her keep her things.
When I do research I always feel for the people I’m researching. Even though they are not my own family I get to know them along the way. So don’t be surprised at my outbursts, ha ha. Well, another thing is that these are not paupers but they aren’t rich people either. And as you can see it’s the time when people had started using utensils to eat that started around the 1870’s. Truls wasn’t a carpenter he was a workman, which means that he would so out to work somewhere, that could be in a factory if there was any or as a janitor or maybe something we would never think of. If he had been a carpenter it would have said so. But he may have done a little woodwork for himself and his family. There are a few things like the chests and the cupboard and stuff like that he may have made himself. He did have a bench and another tool for woodwork so I find that highly probable, but since I have 2 carpenters in Sweden in my family and have a probate for one of them, I can see the tools that he used if he was a carpenter. It’s a shame they don’t write the colors of the furniture, they did that on my ancestor, even his clothing. I knew how many socks he had and shoes and the color of his vest and shirts and his furniture. This was a time when they used to paint furniture in bright colors like blue, red, yellow and green and it looks really nice and cheerier, I can tell you. It looks like the wife did her own weaving and making wool and maybe the clothing she is wearing on the photo is something she has weaved herself. I think these were very self-reliant people that would make a lot of things themselves. Look at Truls hands, I have never in my entire life seen such big hands. And the fact she had a plet(t) pan shows her as a home maker. There is also a Bible and I can imagine that you would have loved to have had that. Back then they often put small memories into them and wrote the names of their family and wrote other things. I wish there was somewhere to look for old bibles. One of them reads as there are a couple of small books. I see them as very hardworking and again they took care of their parents, which is great in my book.
Also what they didn’t have, tells a story. They didn’t have anything for a horse or wagon. In the last years of their lives there was hunger (famine) in Sweden so that people ate grass and I’m not exaggerating, they did. There was no food and Denmark earned a lot of money selling food to Sweden. There were people like in the old novels that smuggled things over from Denmark and a lot of Swedes went to Denmark to work and live to survive. We had so many Swedes here that you wouldn’t believe it. It started in the 1850’s and continued. My mom’s ancestor also came over from Sweden. My granddad’s mother came from Sweden and Nils Månsson and his brother, so they were either very rich people or very poor.
Another thing is that I can see that at some point Truls was in a place called the Rosengaarden which means the rose yard. Well I was looking at a map of Sweden to see where it is and it is in Malmö. The other place Husie is on the outskirts NOW of Malmö but I’m not sure that this was the outskirts back then. Husie is the name of the parish and Malmö is another parish but it’s like my mom lives in Brönshöj, it’s in Copenhagen in the outskirts and you don’t mention Copenhagen at all because it’s an area on its own and people will know what you are talking about while if you say Brönshöj in Copenhagen people would get confused. But back to the Rosengaarden. You see I immediately spotted it on the map and told my mom who then said – isn’t that the area in Malmö they are always talking about being a Muslim ghetto and she is right. This place is now all occupied by Muslims and the Swedes have all the same issues as we do and you just don’t go into this area if your life is dear to you. What a darn shame.
Well I will go on and look for a probate for Karna and hope there is one.
Gotta go.
Big hugs,
Oven
Cooking Utensils
Eating Utensils
Workbench
A Wood working tool
Chests
Cupboards
Weaving Loom
Bible
Small Books
Plett Pan
Bed
Chest of Drawers
