Monday, September 24, 2018

#52Ancestors-Week 39-On the Farm: Per Nilsson

I found the subject On the Farm to be quite difficult.  Oddly, my families on either side were not farmers in the 1900's.  But I did remember my great-grandmother, Ingrid Olausson, had an uncle who was a farmer.

I have written about Per Nilsson before on this blog at: http://suesresearch.blogspot.com/2016/03/per-nilsson-leap-year.html

Per Nilsson was a brother to Ingrid's mother.  He was born in Sweden in 1856 to Nils Trulsson and Anna Martensdotter.  He was the 7th of 10 children, with 5 brothers and 4 sisters.  In 1883, Pers married Kersti Martensson (related to his mother's family, perhaps?) in Sweden.  He farmed in Sweden. Per and Kersti had 2 sons before they immigrated to the United States in 1888.  In 1891, another son was born to them in Iroquois County, Illinois.

By 1893, Per, Kersti and their 3 sons had settled in Rankin, Illinois on a farm, and a daughter was born.   They were there until 1899, which is where and when Ingrid was visiting them and she went to a Swedish dance hall and met my great-grandfather.

Per and his family moved shortly after, because they were listed in the 1900 Hamilton County, Nebraska Census taken in June of 1900.  Per was listed as a farmer.  Shortly after June, another son was born, but he died the following year.  By 1910, Per's wife, Kersti had died.  He was listed still in Hamilton County, as a farmer with 3 of his children.

I have not found Per in the 1920 Census, but I have found that all of his sons became farmers.  Per died in Marquette, Hamilton County, Nebraska in 1929.  I have found an estate listing from a 1929 newspaper where 260 acres of Peter Nelson's was being sold.  So I am guessing that the family farm was being let go of then.

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