The Langaryd Family

By Per Andersson & Johan Lindhardt

The Langaryd Family concists of more than 200 000 people and is the world's largest charted family, listed in Guinness Book of Records since 1988 (Swedish edition). The whole family derives from the farmer and churchwarden Nils Andersson (1620-1717) and his wife Börta (1631-1705) of Våthult parish in the Swedish province of Småland on the border of Västergötland. Their daughter Ingrid Nilsdotter (1676–1753) was married to the district public prosecutor Anders Jönsson (1662–1716) of Långaryd parish in the Swedish province of Småland on the border of Halland. There was also held the world's most numerous family reunion in 1991 with more than 2 500 participants. In front of the church of Långaryd is a memorial stone in remembrance of Anders and Ingrid.

During 34 and 19 years respectively Per Andersson and Johan Lindhardt have been mapping the descendants of their common ancestors, with inestimable assistance from a lot of relatives. Parts of the results has been published some years ago. Subsequently research has continued and further thousands of relatives have been traced. The ambition is that all relatives interested in the family will be able to take part of the family information produced. Therefore the entire family with all its 200 000 members are presented in a “Långaryd family encyclopedia” of 5 volumes with more than 3 000 pages. Four of the books were published in 2006 and the fifth will be printed later this year (2010). Each book holds 170x250 mm. There is a family name and a place name index, and instructions are given in Swedish and for relatives living outside Sweden also in English (as an enclosure). The cost for the five books together is SEK 980 (EUR 100 or USD 120). Lowest postage rate in addition is SEK 300 (EUR 28) for Europe and SEK 400 for the USA (USD 50).

Within the 16 generations known you will find a considerable part of the population of Långaryd and surrounding parishes, and half of the inhabitants of the municipality of Hylte. In addition countless branches have spread to other parts of Sweden (289 of it's 290 municipalities) and to about 60 countries over all continents. In the USA there are descendants in all 50 states. Amongst the family members there are people in different parts of the Swedish and American societies, even members of the Government and the Parliament, generals, bishops, wellknown artists, actors, authors, scientists, professional sportsmen etc.

 

Preface of the books of 2006

The most fundamental relation between human beings is the kinship – based on a common origin – and the primary belonging of an individual is to the circle of relatives. Therefore family knowledge is funda­mental for the knowledge about a society and its history. Each family reflects the local community and the nation to which it belongs, giving proof of social changes and patterns of geographical movements. To the individual and his family genealogical knowledge is a matter of vital importance for under­standing their own role in time and space.

This book contributes to the description of the Långaryd Family (Långarydssläkten) with its starting-point in the district public prose­cutor Anders Jöns­son (ca. 1662–1716) and his wife Ingrid Nils­dotter (ca. 1676–1753) in the parish of Långaryd in the southern Swedish province of Små­land, bordering on the province of Halland. The family includes all persons deriving their origin from these progenitors, i. e. their descendants on male as well as female lines. From Jöns Andersson of Långaryd, who was the father of Anders Jönsson and the first known member of the family, to his latest offspring is a span of 15 generations. In the books are listed descendants during 300 years so far traced out, including persons married (or similar) into the family. By their common extraction all offspring are each­ other's kinsfolk, most distantly 12th cousins. About 70 per cent of all family members known are still alive and belonging to the seven last genera­tions of the family.

The total number of persons in the family is at least 149 000. This extent has made the Långaryd Family the world's largest family charted. As holder of the world record the family is since 1988 listed in the Swedish edition of Guinness Book of Records, in which it also occurs because of its family gather­ing at Långaryd in 1991 which, on account of its more than 2 500 partici­pants, became the biggest one in the world. At the same place a lot of descendants crowded also in 1999 to erect a memorial stone to the memory of the ancestors.

As a consequence of intermarriages – approx­imately 1 370 – between already related descendants some of the family members occur at more than one branch; as far as it is known the purest descendant counts no less than twelve lines to the progenitor. The complete family tree with all its branches known thus has in all 198 000 outgrowths, including those married into the family.

A considerable number of the inhabitants of Långaryd and the surrounding parishes in Småland and Halland belong to the family, e. g. more than half the number of the present inhabitants of Långaryd. In addition countless branches have spread to other parts of Sweden – to 289 out of 290 municipalities (all except Bjurholm in Västerbotten County in the North of Sweden) – and to about 60 countries in all continents. In Halland County there are family members in all approximately hundred parishes except one, Idala. In 48 out of 50 federal states in the USA there are offspring of the Långa­ryd Family progenitor (all except Delaware and Mississippi). Some of the descendants have remained in the original district of the family and still own, cultivate and inhabit farms that have belonged to the family during centuries. Also socially the family is widely spread, and it presents a transverse section of the community.

The mapping of the Långaryd Family has been going on for almost 30 years. Per Andersson started the research about this family, his maternal grandfather's, at the age of 14 in 1976. As time went on quite a number of relatives contributed with investigating larger or smaller parts of the family. The genealogical material was first publi­shed at the beginning of 1988 in the form of the book Långarydsättlingar (Långaryd Descendants). Later that year an enlarged second edition was issued, followed in the same year by a supplement called Nya Långarydsättlingar (More Långaryd Descendants). A considerably enlarged edition of the family description came in 1990 under the name of Långarydssläkten. In 1991 the large family reunion was held in Långaryd, which further increased the interest in the family. After that the mapping work has continued, above all by a lot of new branches being added by relatives who found out that they belong to the family, partly by the family member Johan Lindhardt, who in 1991 made an index of personal names and place-names to the 1990 edition, systematically following up not ­investigated branches of the family and bringing them to present time. As a result the fifth version of the Långa­ryd Family genealogy was edited in 1998. It was almost three times as comprehensive as the very edition be­fore and it also contains the complete material of the four previous books. A continuation to the 1998 year's so called main book was printed in 2002 as an supplement with seven newly mapped branches. Finally, now there is a seventh edition i four volumes containing all family members mapped, i.e. more than twice the number in the 1998 version. Per Andersson's book Släkten Jehander, edited in 1994 by Släktföreningen Jehander (The Jehander Family Association), is an example of a more exhaustive description of a smaller part of the entire family.

Exploring a family means an interplay between the component and the entirety. At the same time the structure should be total by knowledge of all persons' existence and the information on each and everyone should be com­plete, correct and current.

The genealogical research is first and foremost based upon the unique Swedish national registration documen­tation: parish registers, which for more ancient times are kept in the provincial archives and for more recent times at the parish civil registration office. For the most recent years the national registration is computerized within the local taxation offices located in places all over the country. Access to the original sources has been reached by a large number of visits to the archive authorities – such as almost 500 to a lot of parish registrar’s offices – and by letter and by telephone. Information sources have also been: CD data bases such as Sveriges dödbok (a register of deceased Swedes) and The Swedish Population 1890, 1970 and 1980, lists of inheritors, printed family and personal history works, and oral information from relatives.

In the final phase of the family book process proof sheets have been distributed to one representative of each little part or branch of the family, whereby family members have given supplementary information on themselves and their nearest kinsfolk. This is considerably less time-consuming than tracing each descendant of our days in the national registration, and in addition the procedure described has made it possible to add fundamental infor­mation which in many cases is missing in the national registration, e. g. profession, name most commonly used, the person's own way of spelling his or her names, and cohabitation, which today is as important as marriages in a genealogical description. During the genealogical research a large number of letters, which can be counted in tens of thousands, have been exchanged. In addition there have been countless telephone calls and many per­sonal visits.

In spite of all efforts to collect complete information some omissions still remain. The principal reason for lack of information concerning persons of today is that letters with proofs distributed have not been answered or answered incompletely. Although the frequencies of answers to the 13 000 distributed proof sheets was very high, about two out of three.

The genealogy consists of hundreds of thousands single data, and our ambition is of course that each of them will be correct. Nevertheless faults occur, and we ask for the reader’s apology for those mistakes that maybe have been printed. As soon as we get information about some incorrect information we will correct in our material.

All sorts of completions and corrections from persons doing research and from family members in common are welcome. They may be single personal data, addition of persons formerly missed, connecting branches through previously undetected inter­marriages, or a mapping of an unexplored branch. Also information on occurrences within the family – new-born children, contracted and dissolved marriages, deaths, changes of addresses, etc – will be received thank­fully.

For keeping the contact with the family members there is a web site, www.langarydsslakten.se, and also an electronic newsletter (in Swedish) distributed to those who send us their e-mail address.

The genealogical investigation of the many-headed Långaryd Family has been met with an overwhelming response. Thousands of relatives have generously contributed with valuable information. With great appreciation and joy we have also received many kind and encouraging greetings from relatives far and near.

To everyone who has helpfully contributed with bigger or smaller efforts to the realization of this work we hereby express our warmest thanks. The great majority of the descendants now living and in addition some other per­sons have taken part in the work with the book, either by just giving information on his or her own name most commonly used or by collecting data about members of his or her branch of the family or by contributing with their own research results. In spite of honest efforts it has finally turned out to be quite impossible to draw a fair distinction between contributory researchers and relatives delivering information about themselves, and point out those whose contribution has been of the greatest importance for the family mapping. Instead we will let the entire family book serve as a catalogue of collaborators and we wish that each and every one of them by this will receive our thanks for the valuable additions – great or small – that have made this great book possible.

 

The origin and expansion of the Family

The progenitor of the Långaryd Family, the local district public prosecutor Anders Jönsson of Långaryd, died at his farm Höljeryd in the year 1716 at the age of 54, and he was buried on April 22nd; thus he was born around 1662. His wife Ingrid Nils­dotter died at the farm Hälghult in the same parish on February 9th, 1753, 77 years old, which means she was born approximately in 1676. The parents of Anders Jönsson were Jöns Andersson and his wife Elin Larsdotter of Höljeryd. They represents the first of the 15 generations of which we know family members.

The Långaryd Family is divided into six branches, each one stemming from one of the six grown-up children of Anders Jönsson and Ingrid Nilsdotter:

a Anna Andersdotter (1697–1753), married 1717 to Anders Johansson (1687–1768), district public prose­cutor, farmer at Hälghult, Långaryd

b Kerstin Andersdotter (1700–1734), married 1723 to Jöns Hansson (1691–1771), glazier master, farmer at Höljeryd and Bockshult, Långaryd, a brother of the second wife of his brother-in-law Jöns         

C Jöns Andersson (1702–1776), farmer at Höljeryd, Långaryd, married 1:o 1725 to Regina Olofsdotter (ca 1697–1730), married 2:o 1736 to Ingeborg Hansdotter (1709–1785), a sister of the husband of her sister-in-law Kerstin

d Ingeborg Andersdotter (1704–1782), married 1:o 1725 to Per Andersson (ca 1681–1733), farm-owner at Kråkås, Långaryd, married 2:o 1735 to Lars Larsson Örberg (1702–1768), second lieutenant, merchant in Borås town, farm-owner at Kråkås

F Peter Andersson (1707–1793), glazier master, farmer at Bälhult, Långaryd, married 1731 to Karin Bengtsdotter (1712–1781)

H Nils Andersson (1712–1770), farm owner at Eseryd, Långaryd, married 1737 to Anna Andersdotter (1717–1777)

There were also two sons who died very young, Bengt [E] och Anders [G].

The family that Anders Jönsson and Ingrid Nilsdotter created consists of at least 149 000 found individuals, including spouses and similar. Two thirds of them are still alive, belonging to the seven latest generations.

As a consequence of intermarriages – approx­imately 1 370 – between already related descendants almost 20 000 family members occur at more than one branch; as far as it is known the purest descendant counts no less than twelve lines to the progenitor. The complete family tree with all its branches known thus has in all 200 000 outgrowths, including those married into the family. Among the about 149 000 family members 100 000 are descendants to the progenitor and the others spouses of them.

The most frequent descendant, counted in number of biological lines, are Mikael Johansson [aCf GGG BbA:12] of Långaryd, born in 1991, with 12 lines. He derives from four of the progenitor’s children.

Four persons come from all of the six grown-up children of the progenitor: Björn and Marcus Carlberg [FbC pBd faA:8 och FbC pBd faB:8] of Unnaryd, born in 1983 and 1987, and Matilda and Martin Hjelmqvist [FbB Cbb BbB a:7 och FbB Cbb BbB B:7] of Långaryd, born in 1988 and 1992.

The family members are spread to all Sweden, but the allocation is unequal. Most relatives live in the western part of Götaland (Halland, western Småland, Västergötland with the city of Göteborg, and Skåne) or in the Stockholm area. Halmstad is that municipality with the highest number of family members, 12 300; 14 percent of the inhabitants are family members. In the municipalities of Hylte and Gislaved the counterparts are even higher.

The most frequent parent in the family was Bengt Jönsson [FbC] (1764–1855) of Bälhult, Långaryd. With his two wives he had 20 children, born during the period of 1786–1824. In spite that eight of them died as children, until his death he got 61 grandchildren (born from 1807), 48 great-grandchildren (from 1826) and 9 great-great-grandchildren (from 1849), totally 138 descendants. Several of them died before Bengt Jönsson. After his death ten more grandchildren was born, and the complete number became 71.

Two family members have given birth to 17 children within a single marriage: Laura Karlsson née Strömberg [aDD cca b:3] (1881–1950) of Horshult, Långaryd, between 1902 and 1927, and Axia Johansson née Davidsson [baE fdC b] (1891–1974) of Jönköping between 1913 and 1936. The Långaryd Family counts almost 300 families with 10 or more children.

The eldest member of the Långaryd Family, hitherto, was Maria Christensson née Sjöholm [baA KaC d]. She was born on April 26th, 1898 of Höja near Ängelholm, and she died on March 26th, 2005, a month before her 107th anniversary. She lived in Halmstad since the beginning of the 20th century.

 

Reading instructions

The numerous individuals of this family are arranged and presented according to a system for accounting genea­logical ma­terial in a special form of pedigree and with systematic individual designations. This system was de­signed by Per Andersson in the years of 1977–1982 and was later partly improved.

The basic unit of this genealogical system is the individual, the building stone of a family, and all descendants of the progenitor are treated accordingly. The only qualification is the biological fact that the person is an offspring of the progenitor's. Unlike many other forms of family descriptions, here every other circumstance is irrelevant, such as sex, ag­na­tic family affiliation (i. e. descent on an uninterrupted male line), what name is used, legitimate or illegitimate birth, the holding of an inheritable dignity or possession, civil status, age or social position.

The number of units of the family tree is delimited by a cognatic selection with a common starting-point, i. e. the total extent of all successors of the progenitor. The structure of all units arranged among themselves means that the children of each descendant are listed in order of their time of birth, the eldest child next to its parent, so that each elder line will be completed before a younger line succeeds, i. e. lineal primogeniture. All children, grand­children etc of a person are consequently presented before his or her younger brothers and sisters. For each unit, i. e. person, values are aimed at to certain variables mentioned below. The empirical genealogical material is pre­sented in a systematic way in a layout maximally compressed, in order to make it possible to include and survey all persons belonging to the family.

In the book each descendant has got a unique individual designation (individbeteckning, IB), a string of letters that exactly states his or her place among the other descendants of the large family, which would be very difficult to grasp without these distinctive marks. The starting-point when constructing the IB of a descendant is the progenitor. For each generation after him a letter is added up to and including the designated descendant. The place of the letter in the alphabet corresponds to the order of the individual among his or her brothers and sisters. A male person is given an upper-case letter and a female person a lower-case one. The letter units are grouped three together from the left. Example: the eldest child of the progenitor, who is a daughter, gets the designation of a, this daughter's third child, who is a son, aC, and so on. The system can be fully extended and will not – which would be the case with a current numbering of the descendants – be affected by new individuals born in the middle of the family. In every group of brothers and sisters there is room for at least as many children as the number of letters in the alphabet.

The IB can be regarded as a concentrated genealogical table showing the descendant's derivation from the progenitor. From the designation one can gather the individual's sex and place among brothers and sisters and other relatives. The number of letters in the IB of a descendant states to which generation he or she belongs, counted from the progenitor in generation number 0. The IB can also be converted into a kinship term; e. g. CFc is a son's son's daughter of the progenitor. Members of the family with equal number of letters in their de­signations are collaterals, i. e. belonging to the same generation. By the difference between upper- and lower-case letters in the IB it is also possible to understand which ancestor of the descendant the progenitor is, for example that EDa e counts him as her mother's father's father's father.

The generations of the family are numbered so that the progenitor has his place in ge­ne­ra­tion number 0, his children in number 1, grandchildren 2, etc. The generation number thus corresponds to the number of letters in each designation of the offspring in that gene­ra­tio­n­. At the top and at the bottom of each page of the book there are generation numbers marking columns where the information on the family members of the ge­ne­ra­­tion­ is to be found.

The relationship between two members of the family can be gathered when comparing their IBs. Then you ignore the first part of the designation which is identical for both of the persons. Even if the relatives do not belong to the same generation after the progenitor, the kinship stands out obviously, e. g. that gaB AA is a child of a first cousin of gac A. When removing the last letter in the IB of a certain descendant you will get the designation of the one of his or her parents who mediates the family line to the progenitor.

Persons allied to a family member, such as consorts and cohabitees, are given the IB of the descendant followed by g, g1, g2, sb, sb1, sb2 etc respectively, after a hyphen, when they are mentioned separately: Eh-g.

The lineal primogeniture means that the descendants are listed in alphabetical order according to their IBs. In case of a marriage between two persons both descending from the progenitor, their offspring trace their origins from the progenitor in more than one way. Then the descendants as a rule are listed on the pedigree at one of the branches where they belong, with reference at the other contracting party's own place.

Since the structure of related persons is the vital point of genealogical knowledge, there is no aim for any biographical description of the individual members of the family. Nor would this be possible when the number of persons is so large. Thus the description of each of the descendants has been concentrated to a pocket­ful of central variables with the intention of answering the following questions: who (name), what (title/pro­fession), where (place), when (birth, death) and how (the relations backwards, sideways and onwards). The personal name is the term for identifying the individual. A title or profession information indicates the person's social status and a place of living his geographical abode. His and her chronological location comes out of year of birth and of death. After that remains defining the person in the total system of kinships in order to get knowledge about his or her relations to other persons in the family. This is done partly by the systematical IB which connects the descendant's genealogical environment, partly by mentioning persons connected to a descendant without being related, e. g. married. They represent brother- or sister-in-law junctions between families. The information on each individual is normally compressed to occupy just one line in the book.

The information aimed at for each descendant is: all Christian names with the name most commonly used given in upper-case letters, patro­ny­mi­c (father-name, e. g. Eriksdotter), family name or surname when un­married, title/profession (noble descent, edu­cation, profession, occupation, ancillary occupation such as officer in the reserve, important commission of trust such as Member of Parliament, official distinction such as state decoration), name of farm in parenthesis after the profession for farmers, place of living, and date of birth and, when applicable, date of death. In addition, for a descendant who is or has been married or cohabiting or has issue outside marriage or cohabitation: married from date or cohabited from year, divorced or separated, and the same sort of information, except for place of living, on the allied person, and last of all on his or her text line the number of children in this alliance. With the principal purpose that both parents of each de­scendant should be accounted, equal to a consort are: a cohaibitee, a betrothed person (according to Swedish law before 1973) and otherwise the other parent of an illegitimate child. The same thing applies to registered part­ner­ship according to existing Swedish law. Within square brackets there may occur a specification of the person's family belonging, e. g. the number of a family introduced at the House of the Nobility or a reference to annual volume of the Svens­ka släkt­kalendern (the Swedish Genealogical Yearbook). In case both contracting parties are descendants of the progenitor, there will be a reference by IB to the connected person’s own place in the family. At a descendant deriving his or her origin from the pro­genitor in more than one way the number of derivations is marked with :2, :3, etc finally in his IB.

Each person is stated under his or her family name (or surname or patronymic) when unmarried. Middle names are included, too, if the person when unmarried got his or her surname from the one parent and the middle name from the other. If a person has changed namnes, the new one is written after a vertical slash. The family name or surname of a male person married (or in another way allied) into the family is stated in bold type, as in other cases when a name of that sort referring to a descendant of the progenitor's occurs for the first time in a coherent text party. A family name or surname in italics marks a female ally, i. e. in most cases a wife. The name most commonly used is given within brackets, if it is not one of the official Christian names after these names, but always before a patronymic if there is one.

For spatial placement the place of living is used. That information is considered as more apt than place of birth and place of death, which at least for descendants of our time are rather insignificant due to more frequent geo­­graphical moving. Deceased members of the family are mentioned with the place where they lived during most of their lifetime. The place information may consist of a city, town, parish or the place in the postal address. The name of a Swedish parish is always accompanied by a county abbreviation (see the list of abbrevia­tions).

The following abbreviations are used for the main genealogical constants: g (g1, g2, etc) for married (”to” is excluded after the year of marriage), tr for betrothed, sb for cohabiting, bp for the other parent of a child born outside a relation of the types mentioned, and rp for registered partnership. When these abbreviations occur in the column to the right of the sys­te­­­ma­tical designations their function is to state who is the other parent of the descendant, which is the case when the parent who is a member of the family has had more than one wife/husband or the like. A figure in brackets after g, g1, g2 etc states marriage number, if there were more than one, of the allied person; this is the custom until the year of 1900. Example: g1(2) means ”married for the first time in spouse's second marriage”. Adopted children and foster-children are distinguished by the abbreviations ad and fo respectively.

Professions and titles are abbreviated by excluding suffixes such as -are, -erska and -ande. Abbreviations moreover follow the abbreviation list of the book and general rules.

Since the family book is a historical description and not only a current calendar, marks such as ”formerly” and ”eme­ri­tus” in connection with professions and positions that are no longer practised or held do not occur. Titles depending on age or civil status, such as ”retirement pensioner” and ”wife”, are not listed, and the same applies to ”student” up to and including upper secondary school (senior high school) and a noble title acquired through marriage.

Time information given without an exact date or year states approximately, with the addition of an abbreviation of circa or an indication that it is counted from age (Sw. ålder) information, e. g. 1662c, 17140609å.

Adopted children and their offspring are accounted in the same way as biological descendants, but their individual designations contain the marking / at the generation change where the adoption took place, and the data about the adopted person start with the year of adoption. In certain cases foster-children are treated in the same way as adopted children, especially before today's way of adoption came into being.

Missing data about conditions during a period when the person in question has been followed are marked out with three dots, e. g. ”g 18830913-19…”. The marking ”, …, …” after a personal name means that profession as well as place of living are missing. There is, however, no mark for lack of information about Christian names other than the one most commonly used as well as information about which of the Christian names is the one most com­monly used.

In the column furthest to the right in the family presentation there is in­for­ma­tion given that either further offspring exist or may exist or that a line is extinct. After each person married (or the like) into the family there is stated the number of children born in that relation. When a deceased member of the family has no such relation at all, the information on him or her ends with the abbreviation og (unmarried) which shows that no offspring exists. Correspondingly the information on a person deceased when still a child and without any offspring ends with du (dead young) if the year of death is missing. The mark > means that descendants, if there are any, have not been completely investigated. In case a descendant has not been followed till his or her death or until today, there may be information about the last known removal (from place, moving year and to place), e. g. Långaryd F 1883 NAm; NAm = North America.

 

Name Indexes

When in search of persons in the extensive material you can use, in addition to the systematical account of rela­tives, the two alfabetical indexes, one for family names – including surnames according to the Personal Name Act of 1982 – and one for place names.

In the family name index references are given to the page in the books of 2006 where the name occurs for the first time in a co­herent text party, which means the bold-typed and italicized names in the genealogy. The most frequent Swedish family names (An­ders­son, Axelsson, Bengtsson, Carlsson, Claesson, Danielsson, Davidsson, Eriksson, Gustafsson, Gustavsson, Hans­son, Jacobs­­son, Jakobs­­son, Jans­son, Johans­­son, Johnson, Johnsson, Jonsson, Jönsson, Karlsson, Klasson, Larsson, Magnusson, Nilsson, Olofsson, Ols­son, Persson, Petersson, Petters­son, Samuelsson och Svensson) are ex­cluded since the number of persons with each of them is so great that references to them all would make efficient searching impossible. As a substitute in such cases you may find the way by searching a more distinctive name among the closest relatives of the person wanted, or by searching a place name.

A purpose of the place name index is to be complementary to the family name index for the time before family names became common and when most people instead used patronymics but were com­mon­ly known under a geo­graphical attribute, often the name of a farm or a croft. In the place name index there are listed names of hamlets and farms as well as parishes and towns and similar population centres. References to the most frequent places (Falken­berg, Göteborg, Halmstad, Hyltebruk, Jönköping, Lund, Långaryd, Malmö och Stock­holm) are excluded because of the large amount of descendants living there.

Upphovsrätt/Copyright © 2004–2010 Per Andersson & Johan Lindhardt

Källa: www.langarydsslakten.se