Identifying Swedish Soldiers in World War I: A Historical Investigation

Sometimes I just give up. I have tried so many times to find facts in differents archives, but I can’t get any further in my work to try to identify and confirm names of the soldiers I have in my research that stated they were born in Sweden when they signed their registration papers to become soldiers in their new countries.

Something tells me that I can’t give up, and now and then I succeed, which gives me energy to continue the search and my work trying to confirm who they were to find and confirm their names in the Swedish Church Books. It isn’t easy and it takes time.

During the latest years I have increased my skills in how to search and which data I can assume be something else than it shows.

In this article I will mention a few examples of how I have succeeded and what I still have left to investigate.

I have still 13 soldiers in my research that I have marked in red in my database, which means that they have stated they were born in Sweden, and most of the data points in that direction, but I can’t confirm them until I have found their real identity in the Swedish book of birth. The majority of the unconfirmed soldiers are from the Canadian Expeditionary Forces.

I have, for a long period been trying to find and Identify the Canadian soldier Lindor Nelson, stated to have been born in “Sweedon” and with the date of birth June 6th, 1885.

Lindor is not a common name in Sweden at that time. I have learned that Nelson can in most cases be the Swedish surname of Nilsson. If I use the data presented like his name and date of birth, I will not find any connection.

• In the Swedish church books the surname is often left out, as they are mentioned with their name if mentioned together with his family, where the parents are mentioned with both name and surname, so I can’t search for Lindor Nilsson, just his name.
• Lindor could be a version of another name, Linder, which were still uncommon back at that time. No Linder with that date of birth was found.
• I have to look for more data to use in my investigation

Looking at the document from the Canadian archives, there are some other clues. I find the name Laura Nelson, stated as his mother, and I can see the name of the village, Tocksfors, which has been changed a couple of times in the document, and that is probably Töcksfors.

I can also see the name of Olga Nelson, even if it is covered a bit. Then we have Laura, Olga and Töcksfors to use in my further investigation.

I use paid services, like the Swedish archive online software, like Arkiv Digital, where I can search with different combinations, but it isn’t easy if I don’t know the method, which I have learned during my intense usage of the program.

Yesterday I tried the combinations of the above known data, and finally, after quite a long time, I may have found the correct data. Could this be Lindor Nelson?

From the parish of Töcksmark, not Töcksfors, I find the Nilsson family with the head, Nils August Nilsson, the mother Laura Abrahamsdotter, the daughter Olga Elvira and the son Elof Linder.

Success!

Could Elof Linder Nilsson be Lindor Nelson? I then use other paid services, like Ancestry, to find other clues like passenger lists etc. In the Swedish church book I haven’t been able to find a note about if Elof Linder emigrated, but through Ancestry I found that he left through Norway and were heading for Canada. He seems to have left in 1914.

It has not been easy to find other Canadian census documents as I don’t know which names or spellings he used, but all in all I can probably say that Lindor Nelson was Elof Linder Nilsson, born February 11th, 1886, and not June 6th, 1885.

The reason for that he didn’t mention his correct date of birth, as he signed his attestation papers for the Canadian Army quite early after his immigration, in October 1915.

Lindor Nelson belonged to the 14th Canadian Infantry Battalion when he was killed in action north-west of Lens, March 6th, 1918. He is today buried in Mazingarbe Communal Cemetery Extension near Noeux-les-mines in France. I visited him a while ago. May he rest in peace, knowing that I have probably found out who he was.

I still have cases that I work on, and here is an example of that I haven’t been able to solve yet, and which I find a bit odd as well.

I am trying to find out if the Canadian soldier Oscar Osk was born in Sweden, as he stated in his registration papers of the Canadian Army. I wrote an article about Oscar osk in July this year, and I am still trying to find out who he was. In this case I have some other data to connect to this investigation.

What is it with the address Ystadsgatan 11?

If I try to search for Oscar or Oskar, with the surname of Osk, in the Swedish church books, combined with the date of birth, I will not be able to find anyone with those data.

• The city of Malma, in combination with the word of Scona are probably to be translated to Malmö in Skåne, in the southern part of Sweden.
• I have tried to search for the surname “Ask” as it may have sounded like Osk. Ask is a Swedish surname.
• I haven’t been able to find any Oscar Ask in the military archives either, as he stated that he had been in the Swedish Army for three years.

One interesting, specific, information in the papers of Oscar Osk is the name and the address of his “father”, Ola Martensson. Martensson is probably Mårtensson, but it can also be Martinsson. The address is also stated to be Ystadsgatan 11 in Malmö.

Someone seems to have found information which connects these two individuals by sticking a label onto the document, and this I find interesting.

Could Oscar Osk be an alias for someone else that is connected to Ola Martenson?

If I search about Ola Martenson in the service of Arkiv Digital, with the name and the address in combination, I find Ola Mårtensson on Ystadsgatan 11. But there is no son with the name Oscar connected to him, born in 1890.

Ola Mårtensson have other children and two of his sons, Otto Leander Olsson and Nils Elof Olsson emigrated from Sweden to North America in 1914. In the passenger list I found the name of the father, Ola Mårtensson, with the address Ystadsgatan 11, in Malmö. You can see it if you look closely into the image, which I have marked with yellow.

Could anyone of these sons be Oscar osk, but with another name? Otto is born in 1891, and Nils is born in 1884.

I searched for more information on Ancestry and I found that Otto Leander Olsson served in the American Expeditionary Force, for the 349th Infantry Regiment, 88th Division, and survived the War. He was also registered for the Second World War. He died in 1966. So Otto couldn’t be Oscar.

Although, I find it very interesting, that the name Ola Mårtensson on Ystadsgatan 11 in Malmö, is connected to those individuals. Did Ola have a son that wasn’t known to others? Were there more Ola Mårtensson who could have lived on the same address? I have to search further on in this case.

Who was this Oscar Osk?

Oscar Osk fought for the 28th Infantry battalion in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces, when he was wounded in action on August 21st, 1917, and he later died of wounds on August 24th, 1917.

Oscar is today buried Barlin Communal Cemetery Extension in the region of Pas de Calais, in France. I visited him during the summer of 2025, and right now I still don’t know who you are, Oscar. May you rest in peace. I will one day find out who you were.

I have experienced that in some cases, when it comes to Swedish immigrants to both Canada and North America, that they didn’t want to write in the registration papers that they were from Sweden, for different reasons. Those reasons were connected to time and location. From an American perspective at that time, Sweden was a country with well known connections to Germany.

Although, in some cases I know that individuals wrote that they were from Sweden, even if the weren’t, as they probably thought that they would be treated differently, and maybe not be up for service or conscription.

There were a lot of factors that affected people at that time when it came to serve for your new country, and from my experience there were Swedes who wanted to leave Sweden just for the reason not to serve for the Swedish Army, and were not so happy to be drafted and later serve for their new country either.

But most of the Swedish immigrants thought, according to history documents from that time, it was a natural thing to do, and went into the War with a will to defend the values of their new country. All except one soldier in my research, of those Swedish born soldiers who fell in the War, volunteered for service in The Canadian Army.

One of them was a conscript when Canada came under the Military Service Act in August 1917.

There are still 12 soldiers left to investigate, and I really hope that I will be able to find out who they were, and be able to confirm them in my database. Although, one sorted, and I have to take that positive feeling with me.