During this week the google earth project is updated with some more locations of the soldiers in the project. There are still some more to put up there. After that the update of the personal pages will continue.
Verify through church books
I have now almost found the date of birth of every soldier in my research, in the Swedish National Archive “Riksarkivet”. It is very fascinating to do this detective kind of work, to find their real names, and to get it verified that they were born in Sweden, which is one of my cornerstones in my research.
I have also now removed three of the names from my list, because I found out they were born in another country, but had Swedish parents though.
I still have my around 100 names to continue my work with, and I so long for the next opportunity to continue down to Belgium and France to document where they fell and where they are buried or commemorated.
Please feel free to follow my work here on my page, I will keep it updated with the latest facts along the way!
Church books
A very good source to verify the identity of aech soldier is to try to find them in the church books through the National Archive. Sweden has a long tradition to register different occasions in a persons life and now that is a very good thing, when searching for the roots of each soldier. I feel this is just the start in my work to try to widen the perspective of each individual.
From riksarkivet.se
On this day …
… the October 4th 1917, Lance Corporal Peter William Olsens Unit, the 9th Coy of the 2nd Infantry Bn of New Zealand Wellington Regiment, was fighting in the area of Passschendaele in Belgium. Probably they took part in the fightings of Broodseinde Ridge and Gravenstafel Spur, south and west of Passchendaele.
Peter William Olsen was born the February 24th in 1890 in Sweden, according to fact that I have researched and he was enlisted to New Zealand Army the April 22nd 1916. He was Taken on strength in the 2nd battalion in France after has arrived from New Zealand in June 2nd 1917.
After fightings he was declared mising but sooner reported Killed in action the same day, and in buried in Tyne Cot Cemetery north of Ypres in Belgium.
Today we remember Peter William Olsen, and what he did as a native Swede, for his new country New Zealand. #LestWeForget.
Photo: Joacim Hallberg 2019
List of soldiers updated – 100 soldiers
In the soldiers menu, you will now find that the list is updated with 100 names. I will now stop for a moment, in trying to find more Swedish soldiers who fell at the Western Front, and instead complete the summary of each soldier, to bring you the information of who they were, and where they fell, stated in the google earth project.
I am so deicated to this project, and for me it is very important to commemorate these men who moved from Sweden and participated on any side in The Great War, to fight for what they beleived was right and important. Thank you for following me on this trip.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Five new Swedes …
… found through simple name search in the archives. It will be nice to take care of them and put their information up on this page. I am pretty sure it will be a lot mor to find through this quite heavy, but important, method. More will follow.
Upcoming trip
If the Covid-19 situation will be as it is now in Belgium I am planning to visit 11 of the places where the soldiers fell, which all are in the area east-south east of Ypres (Ieper). The trip will take place in the end of october, and following sites will be documented.
- Karl Olson
- Edvin Olson
- Andrew Bergman
- Tage Ågren (Richardson)
- Peter Nord
- Oscar Wikström
- Martin Swedberg
- Bertil Lindh
- Conrad Hedberg
- Johan Hallberg
- Nils Otto Lundius
The places I will visit are the places where they are assumed to have been when they fell, it is more like an area than an exact spot, but based on names on trenches on the Trench Maps I have found together with notes from the diaries.
I have already been at the sites where they are commemorated or buried. The region in France that I was planning to visit at the same time, is closed for the moment, it will be done in next trip. In the future it will of course be possible to join me if wanted! 🙂
Soldier added to the list
It is so nice to receive information from people who has discovered my page, about soldiers that I havent found information about earlier. The day has been exiting, filled with some extra research about this individual. Many thanks to Hans Rosenberg, who gave me this tip about Otto, and to Lars Gyllenhaal, who put information up on his facebook page about my homepage. I am honoured.
The soldier name was Otto Armfelt, and it shows up that he is a decendant to The former Swedish General Carl Gustav Armfelt, with a very remarkable history himself.
Some info in Swedish:
Ottos father:
Carl Johan Vilhelm (översiktstab 11, son av Carl Axel August, tab 32), född 1866-05-03 Prinsnäs. Ägde Hunnerstad och Markestad, bada i Höreda socken, Jönköpings län. Död 1904-12-08 på Hunnerstad. Gift 1891-12-31 i Eksjö med Charlotta Constanse Lotten Hultin, född 1868-08-14 i Ryssby socken, Kronobergs län, dotter av byråchefen och jägmästaren Otto Maximilian Hultin och hans 1:a fru Hedvig Lundquist. Död 1943-03-18 i eksjö (db nr 17).
Otto himself:
Otto Maurits Vilhelm, född 1895-04-09. Deltog i världskriget. Död 1918-11-05 »på Frankrikes slagfält» Höreda förs, Jönköpings län
[source: https://www.adelsvapen.com/genealogi/Armfelt_nr_213]
You can find more information about his time in the battlefield through the menu “soldiers”.
Deeper research reveales the truth.
On one page I today found info about a Swede that the author beleived was killed at The Western Front, and I thought I have found yet another person for my research.
I started to search for more info about this person and it showed up that he actually survived.
Robert Sundberg from Kalmar in Sweden emigrated to Australia and joined the AIF and was sent to the Western Front in 1916, and was taken on strenght 22nd of december 1916. He fought for the 15th Australian Infantry Bn, and was taken Prisoner of War the 3rd of may in 1917.
Initially he was declared “Missing in Action”, but was later confirmed to be a prisoner in the German Camp in Dülmen. He was repatriated back to England 19th of December 1918, and finally went back to Australia the 2nd of March in 1919.
From declared to have been killed in France, to actually been alive and sent back to Australia. Nice to straighten things out.
Researching diaries
One source of information is to try to find diaries from archives, both digital and from material that are archived but not digitized, such as papers and books at different libraries and similar.
One example is the diaries from Sven Blom who fought for the French Foreign Legion in the beginning of the war, around 1914-1915. He later got frostbites on one of his feets, and continued to keep contact with the other Swedes in the Legion through letters, from the hospital.
Some parts of the diaries are digitized, but there are a lot more to find at Uppsala University. Below a picture from Svens diary.
Source: https://ub.uu.se/finding-your-way-in-the-collections/selections-of-special-items-and-collections/sven-bloms-diaries/