Visiting Undenäs

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 was the day to visit Undenäs, the area from where the Anderson line in my family tree lived before immigrating to the United States. In an earlier post I mentioned Sven Luthman, who took us on a tour of these areas. Anyway, we met him at the Laxå Burger King shortly after 10 AM. Sven insisted on driving us in his car, so we didn’t argue. I was tired of driving and he had a nicer car – a late model Volvo station wagon. He was prepared with all sorts of reference material, including a book with Swedish place names, a book of very detailed maps, and a two-volume Swedish-English/English-Swedish dictionary. We brought our laptop with my Personal Ancestral File on it and a few maps we had acquired.
The first stop we made was Kungsbacken, the birthplace of Maria Larsdotter, the grandmother of Andreas John Anderson, my Great-grandmother Clark’s father. That makes her my great-great-great-great grandmother. Anyway, we found the community on the eastern side of the lake called Undenäs. It is just a collection of houses with no stores, church, or school. There was a small signpost giving a few stories in Swedish and German explaining how the community got its name.
We stopped and talked with a couple and an older man, Sven explaining we were there to find out about where my ancestors lived. The man had some records of the homes in the area and by extension the people who lived there. He suggested we all go to a nearby community, Tivedentorp, where there was a little restaurant where we could sit and talk. He gathered up his papers and off we went. He was very generous, buying us some pastries and tea and we sat down together. We didn't find any direct connections with my ancestors, but it was still interesting to see the area where they lived.