Almost every family seems to have a story about an ancestor whose name was changed at Ellis Island. Hollywood loves to use this urban legend of a character coming to America and an unfeeling, disinterested customs official can't pronounce the foreign name, so he gives the character a new, Americanized name. It never happened. Custom officials used the manifest that was created at the point of departure. Also, most of the inspectors could speak more than one language. If names were changed, it came from the immigrant, not from the inspector.
On my paternal side, my Bellgraph family became Bellgraph from Bellgrowa in Pomerania long before they immigrated to America. My 2x great grandfather John Knach became John Conor when he settled among many Irish Catholics in Nebraska. He even went so far as to claim to be from Ireland on the census, even though his family was from eastern Prussia.
On my maternal side there are many instances of the appearing and disappearing letter "t" at the end of Strandt. Even in Germany the letter appears and disappears. In America, Carl Strand seems to be the only family member who left it off. It seems to have disappeared permanantly from him around the time of World War I when there was large anti-German sentiment in the country.
This leaves us with Sven Goran Henrik Johansson, known as George Henrickson in America. If we look at George's family, we can see that there is actually a history of men in his family changing surnames.
Going back we find George's great grandfather, Anders Skjold, born in 1788 in Sweden. His father's name was Lars Christian Hultberg. When Anders joined the Swedish military, though, he took on a military surname. Men would do this to distinguish themselves from all the other men with the same name as them. "Skjold" means "Shield" in Swedish.
Anders Skjold later had a son named Sven Andersson, born in 1810. Sven also joined the Swedish military and took on a soldier surname. His surname was "Fahna", which means "Flag." So, Sven Andersson Fahna is how he became known. His children had the last name Fahna.
Sven had two sons, Jonas and Anders. They also joined the Swedish military and took on military surnames. Jonas could not use Fahna, as his father was using it. Jonas's surname became "Fahnstrom". Anders took the last name "Lindblad." Lindblad is an ornamental name. "lind" refers to the Lind, or Lime tree. "blad" refers to Leaf.
Sven's daughter, Ingrid, married Johan Jonasson. Their son, Sven Goran Henrik, would have had the last name of Johansson. Johan was one of the most popular, if not the most popular name in Sweden at the time. That means, there would have been very many Swedish immigrants in America with the last name of Johansson. We've already seen how common it was to change the surname in Sweden. There was no tradition of carrying on a family name as the surname changed each generation, or with entry to the military. So, when Sven Goran Henrik Johansson came to America and saw how many other Swedish immigrants had the last name Johansson, he decided he wanted to stand out and be different. When he became a naturalized American citizen he chose a new, more American sounding name for himself. He went with George Henrickson. He dropped Johansson, and turned his name of Henrik into his surname by adding "son."
Did you know there is a luxury expedition company out of Scandinavia called Lindblad cruises? Wish we were related to them
ReplyDeleteHaha! They wouldn't let you go for free.
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