Family Reunion: Martensson
Going four generations back to find another line
This surname can be found among my wife’s Sixteen great-great-grandparents. We have to go that far back to find the first Mårtensson - but with a Swedish twist!
Elna Mårtensson - 04 Nov 1846 - 07 Dec 1915
As you’re probably aware, laws for Scandinavian surnames were adopted at different times, depending on the country of origin. Elna was born in a village called Annelöv in Skåne County, Sweden. Her father’s name was Mårten Esbjörnson, and his father’s name was Esbjörn Mårtensson.
Evidence suggests that when it came time to baptize his daughters, Mårten decided that instead of using the traditional patronymic, his daughters would carry “Mårtensson” as their surname. So in 1846, 1848, 1853, and 1860, you can find baptism records for Elna, Anna, Hanna, and Emelie (respectively) that list their surname as “Martensson”. Sweden abolished patronymics in 1901 and required everyone to adopt a surname, so Mårten was quite the trendsetter.
If you decide to dig into the very detailed records from the Sweden, Selected Indexed Household Clerical Surveys, 1880-1893 database, you can find records placing the family in several of the places named on the map above: Billeberga (where Mårten Esbjörnson married Pernilla Åkesdotter on 4 Nov 1845); Östra Karaby, where they farmed from 1855-1863; and Reslöv, where Mårten died on 1 Dec 1876. Mårten’s mother, Else Andersdotter, was born on 7 Nov 1778 in Annelöv; his father, Esbjörn Mårtensson, on 3 Sept 1773 in Västra Karaby.
Odds are that the family were members of the Lutheran Church of Sweden - though, considering that membership in the State church was legally enforced until 1860, it’s hard to know how they actually felt about their membership. Not only did the enforced religious membership end in 1860 but rules regulating emigration were also eased. The country's population had doubled from 1750 to 1850 and was still growing, meaning that tillable land was increasingly scarce. This was hard on farm laborers like Mårten. All of these factors led 100,000 Swedes to travel to America between 1868 and 1873 alone!1
Elna’s brother, Anders Mårtensson, was among them. He left his home in the village of Reslöv, boarded a ship called the Spain, and arrived in New York on 5 Nov 1872. I don’t know where Anders ended up, but his nephew, Arvid Holmquist, came about 40 years later and settled near Minneapolis, Minnesota.
As always, I’d love to hear from you if any of these folks are in your family tree. I know the odds are slim, but it doesn’t hurt to invite you!
I’m working my way through the second set of Sixteens - my 2nd-great grandparents and my wife’s - in these Family Reunion posts. If you’d like a simplified list of the first set of Sixteen (the 16 great-great-grandparents of my children), you can find that here. And if you’re curious about who is in this second half of the series, be sure to subscribe!
Library of Congress, “Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History: The Swedes",”