The email from Australia

The email from Australia were read with skepticism. Six months later, stod Kylie and Craig Harrison från Australia  in Ullånger Sweden  smiling. We are family! by Lars-Åke Krantz

Klick the pics to make them bigger.

Peter Sjölund, Härnösand, Craig Harrisson Perth, Lars-Åke Krantz Härnösand, Kylie Harrisson Sydney och Britt-Marie Strand (born  Krantz) Ullånger.

Tell me how it went!
The call came from the  readers after my cry out for help in Ullånger FB magazine recently. This true story of course is told from several vantage points, depending on the author. Here is mine.

Background
Lars-Åke Krantz sat in his house in Florida and checked his email. Suddenly there was a message from someone Elin Wahlgren in Sweden representing an Australian couple. The message was about:

-Hello
We have found you online and think you may be related to a bunch of Australians in Sydney looking for their roots. We have traced a Lars-Magnus Rodin to Ullånger Sweden,  an adventurer who jumped off the boats he signed on and finally ended up on the east coast of Australia as William Harrisson where he settled down. A DNA test could solve the riddle.

I handled the email as a joke, and replied that I was unimpressed by my wild sailor-relatives from the nineteenth century and the buccal swab was not top of my bucket  list of things I wanted to do before I go.

The answer that came from Elin then was polite and respectful, and there was also a related description from me back to Lars-Magnus Rattlebrain in Ullånger . I contacted my sister as  I always do when I do not get it.
-She’s much smarter and everything.

Sister Britt-Marie Krantz, married Strand, lives on today in the little cottage in KLAPPSTA which was our parents. She had of course a whole book about our mother’s relatives and found there a  Lars-Magnus Rodin sailor who disappeared.

Now I got my act together and send a polite email to Australia. There, it had developed into a visit to Sweden and of course I invited the  long travelers to big  sister …!

 -Very Convenient.
I had her take over , and invited myself to  come as a guest Aug. 1, 2015, eating her good food and stare at the brand new relatives

Three weeks before their arrival, I got nervous spattering thinking of they travelling over half the globe, and I had nothing to contribute. Then came the emergency call in Ullånger News  sheet that looked like this.

“KRANTZ NEED Ullånger residents HELP
Now Krantzen under fire again, and now he seeks the help from you. Two Australians have found Lars-Åke Krantz online in the pursuit of their Swedish roots.
-Which BLANK!
Having Krantz genealogists is like having Pat Boone on rave party.
Saturday, August 1, they will hit  Ullånger from across the globe and the only thing the  relative dyslectic  Krantz has to say to them is:
– “Hey, mate.”

The answer to my cry for help came immediately from a Peter Sjölund in Härnösand who attached great data how my great-grandmother was the sister of Lars-Magnus Rodin te Australia-goner who changed his name to William Harrisson.

At the same time got a response from a known genealogist in Härnösand named Björn Thunberg.

Han wrote that I was a relative of Lars-Magnus Rodin and Magdalena Forsberg but do not say it to her because I always came last in the cross country skiing on China Valley in Ullånger.

My wide pieces of wood with candle wax slipped and went up on the Ola Westlund-prepped  tracks so they looked like potato fields  when I was done

I have the greatest respect for Peter Sjölund and Björn Thunberg who took the  familydyslectic  Krantz history to his heart, and with all the pros facts grew now comb on the little Krantz.

Mr. Craig and Kathy Harrison from Sidney would get to visit Björn Thunberg in Harnosand and get the pieces presented. Furthermore, Peter Sjölund KLAPPSTA in Ullånger  with a map of relatives under his arm and a laptop full of DNA  and the then another new relative in Ornskoldsvik found, Erik Bergström whi upon everything had made a  DNA test himself.

Furter  in this true story  Peter Sjölund revealed that recently he had  completed a television recording,  Who do you think you are.  In the show searched famous  Thomas Ledin his roots and who do you think was the “expert in the program.”

-Yes, Peter Sjölund.

He is, moreover, of the top of genealogy through DNA in the country and gives lectures on the subject. That very guy  would  appear to the  sister’s shrimp soup with garlic bread.

Peter Sjölund lay out the text.

Now we had a Who do you think you’re in Klappsta for real !!

And it gets even better.
Who Do You Think You Are, was one of Kylie’s and Craig’s fave programs and eyes nearly fell out when we were told that we had a TV experts around the table. He laid out the text and concluded that he was related to Rodin, Bergstrom, Krantz and Harrisson.

In that moment, it was almost like we started asking each other what we wanted for Christmas.

We were like  family the whole bunch.

Erik Bergström. Britt-Marie Strand, Kylie Harrison, Peter Sjölund, Craig Harrison all family.

Now sister spoke. She knew vere Lars-Magnus was born. She had done her homework Now would the Harrisson’s get entrance to the soft grass of Roted and stroll the hillsides where Lars-Magnus learned to walk.

Peter gasped. We had thanked him for the day and he was going to leave but now he wanted to go on the drive.

We hang a right at Lid and drive the small road from south to Roted, seeing the little red house on the right side where Edward Vallin lived with their stepparents.

The landscape opens and a tall building sits up on the left. We go out.
-Here’s where Lars-Magnus was born, says my big sister simple and I’m about to burst with pride.

And it will get better.
Now, the family that lives there today comes down to the road and welcome us in to the courtyard. After my sister’s telephone call they have taken  their own initiative looking in to old boxes with papers.

On the grass in front of the house stands Kylie and Craig and pinch their self in the arm.
-Never We had dreamed of standing on the ground where Lars-Magnus lived as a young man, they say.
The couple Sundström says that the original house stood on the site they stand and that it is torn in favor of today’s dwelling house but the doors have been preserved and moved to the current building’s upper floor and we are invited.

Now they are picking up a total surprise to everyone. 300 year old documents and sales documents, signatures and facts and they have even made copies to everybody

Ragna and  Bengt Sundström to the wright.

-We should have cotton gloves Peter mumbeled

Upstairs the Harrissons gently touch the  doors that  their Swedish descendant opened and closed generations ago. It is like a key to the past. The door swings and the gateway to  lost time is opened.

Right here started it all. Lars-Magnus Rodin grow up her  here and then signed on ships that took him to the other side of the earth. GREAT THANK’S Ragna and Bengt Sundström.

Map of Roted. To go to Harnosand you did once or twice in life. Few had seen Stockholm. Paris was another planet and Australia ….. an unknown solar system on the map for those who had a map of the world in general.

Lars-Magnus jumped off the boat in England whose destination was Brazil.

“Deserters” they were called in certain cases.

Crew members who abandoned ship and never showed up when it sailed, and he would do it at least once.

Lars-Magnus Rodin turned   William Harrisson.

Picture from Australia.

In Sidney he jumped off for the last time, became a farmer and oyster growers and passed on his mysterious last name Kylie and Craig who returned to the farm 1 August 2015 to share the view he probably carried with him throughout life.

On the High Coast’s mountains and valleys with the highest peak in front of the family home in Roted. Dalsberget (alley Mountain) 312 meters above sea level.

Sweden at Lars-Magnus time. The old house to the left  is where now the Bear house is.  ( Seen at the picture above by the road E4.  (restaurant)
The road on the picture is the main road at that time .  State road 13

Kylie and Craigs Saturday trip was crammed with impressions and Sunday flooded again when the knowledgeable Björn Thunberg in Härnösand opened the covers of the past

Lars-Magnus went to sea in 1852 and never returned, he concluded.

This was so interesting that they saw themselves forced to return even on Monday, their very last day in Sweden before the journey home.

Bjorn could guide them through the folding boats Lars-Magnus boarded. Many pieces fell into place for them and for Erik Bergström from Ornskoldsvik who found several new relatives in his home  town.

In addition to this searched and found the party Bergström graves at Ullånger church “known names” on.

It so proved that the old and beloved  Spjutegården  at Murberget in Hänösand was built by the Rodin family from Ullånger

Furthermore, that TV-star Carola is our relative, and that we descended from the first settler in Ångermanland, farmer Gulle.

But now we are in the Swedish 1500s, two hundred years before Australia’s first history letter is written.