I’m a sometime member of the Swedish Heraldic Society (Svenska Heraldiska Föreningen). I sort of rolled into it, from years ago when Magnus Bäckmark included my grandfather Harry Swanstrom’s coat of arms in his armorial roll at Gröna stubben. Probably about 1998, or a bit earlier. At this point I feel like I’ve known Magnus most of my adult life. I’m hoping to meet him...
Adoption plays an often quirky role in genealogy. First, there’s the problem that people often disagree about how to handle adoptive lines when a biological line is also known. And second, there is the problem that modern adoption is a formal, legal procedure, while historic adoption was often informal and can be indistinguishable or almost indistinguishable from fosterage. “To...
From time to time Mom mentions a memorable blizzard sometime during her childhood. Her parents took in the Dack family. Ray and Marjorie Dack, with sons Bud and Douglas, were a local family who lived north of the Swanstroms. They were stranded on the highway and couldn’t get home. For a week, the two families ate and slept in shifts. Grandpa had to tie a rope to himself when he went out to...
James Tanner often writes about the Rules of Genealogy. These aren’t rules in the sense that you must follow them. They’re common sense parameters for doing genealogy. Natural laws rather than rules of the game, if you will. Rule One: When the baby was born, the mother was there.Rule Two: Absence of an obituary or death record does not mean the person is still alive.Rule Three: Every...
Racialist arguments are tricky. Like most cons, there are underlying bits of accuracy, even though they’re strung together with fuzzy thinking. One of the shibboleths of modern racial paganism is a general confusion among categories of identity. One that particularly stands out for me is the way some of the them extrapolate from tribe to race and nation. Saying, “There really was a...