They came from a land of small cottages and large families. They were people of the soil, and they came of a stock which for thousands of years had tilled the ground they were now leaving. Generation had followed generation, sons ucceeded fathers at harrow and plow, and daughters took their mothers´ place at spinning wheel and loom. Through ever-shifting fortunes the farm remained the home of the family, the giver of life´s sustenance. ... The cottages nestled low and grey, timbered to last for centuries, and under the same roof of bark and sod the people lived their lives from birth to death. Weddings were held, christening and wake ale was drunk, life was lit and blown out within these same four walls of rough-hewn pine logs. Outside of life´s great events, little happened other than the change of seasons. In the field the shoots were green in spring and the stubble yellow in autumn. Life was lived quietly while the farmer´s allotted years rounded their cycle. And so it was, down through the years, through the path of generations, down through centuries.
About the middle of the nineteenth century, however, the order of unchange-
ableness was shaken into its very foundations. Newly discovered powers came into use, wagons moved without horses, ships without sails, and distant parts of the globe were brought closer together. And to a new generation, able to read, came the printed word with tales of a land far away, a land which emerged from the mists of the saga and took on the clearing, tempting aspects of reality.
The new land had soil without tillers and called for tillers without soil. It opened invitingly for those who longed for a freedom denied them at home. The urge to emigrate stirred in the landless, in the debt-bound, the suppressed and the discontented. Others again saw no mirage of special privilege or wealth in the new land, but wanted to escape entanglements and dilemmas in the old country. They emigrated, not to something but from something. Many, and widely different, were the answers to the question: Why?
In every community there were some men and women who obeyed the call and undertook the uncertain move to another continent. The enterprising made the decision, the bold were the first to break away. The courageous were the first to undertake the forbidding voyage across the great ocean. The discontented, as well as the aggressive, not reconciling themselves to their lot at home, were emigrants from their home communities. Those who stayed - the tardy and the unimaginative - called the emigrants daredevils.
The first emigrants knew little of the country awaiting them, and they could not know that more than a million people would follow them from the homeland. They could not foresee that, a hundred years hence, one-fourth of their own people were to inhabit the new country; that their descendants were to cultivate a greater expanse of land than the whole arable part of Sweden at that time. They could not guess that a cultivated land greater than their whole country would be the result of their undertaking - a groping, daring undertaking, censured, ridiculed by the ones at home, begun under a cloud of uncertainty, with the appearance of foolhardiness.
Those men and women, whose story this is, have long ago quitted life. A few of their names can still be read on crumbling tombstones, erected thousands of miles from the place of their birth. At home, their names are forgotten - their adventures will soon belong to the saga and the legend.
Vilhelm Moberg, The Emigrants

This is my special page on emigrants (from Sweden to North America) in my family. If you recognise a namn (or a place) please don't hesitate – write to me! I'd really love to meet (or at least write to) one of my "cousins".

The following two emigrant families are both from the Borås area (Älvsborgs län in Västergötland).

Frans Emil Karlander, born 27 April 1864 in Borås. Worked as a bricklayer. Married 5 July 1885 to Wilhelmina Söderström in Borås. She was born 22 July 1864. They had three children (that I know of), all born in Borås: Konrad Wilhelm (born 28 July 1885), Elsa Wilhelmina (born 25 December 1886), and Axel Edvin (born 30 September 1888).

The family emigrated to USA 17 January 1890 (contract no. 41:41:30757). Travelled on steamship Orlando (Wilson Line) from Göteborg to Hull, and then to Amesbury in Mass.

Casper Hedlund, born 19 February 1857 in Ljushult. Married 30 December 1879 to Maria Gustafva Andreasdotter in Ljushult. She was born 17 April 1859 in Hallaryd. They had two children: Frans Edvin (born 4 October 1880 in Ljushult), and Sigrid Natalia (born 12 September 1885 in Borås).

The family emigrated to USA 13 August 1886 (contract no. 29:433:254). Travelled on steamship Romeo (Wilson Line) from Göteborg to Hull, and then to New York.

The following emigrants are brothers and sisters from Tjureda/Växjö in Småland. Their last name might have changed from Carlson to Sjösten upon arrival in New York.

Arvid Ringwald Carlson. Born 29 May 1872. From Malmö to New York 23 March 1893 (contract no. 1893.449:6272).
Hedvig Elisabeth Carlson. Born 21 April 1875. From Malmö to New York 23 March 1893 (contract no. 1893:449:6272). According to letters sent to her brother Carl Sjösten in Sweden, she lived in New York City (2253 University Ave in letter dated Jan 21 1946, and 98 W 183 St in letter dated Nov 28 1946). Her last name now: Collins.
Algot Herman Carlson. Born 20 August 1867. From Malmö to New York 5 April 1888 (contract no. 1888:761:3795).
Johanna Maria Carlson. Born 3 November 1860. From Malmö to New York 6 September 1889.
Ida Matilda Carlson. Born 20 March 1870. From Malmö to New York 1 or 7 July 1886.
Emilia Andrietta Carlson. Born 5 May 1877. From Malmö to New York (after 1896).