Researching family history is interesting in many ways. Aside from understanding more about where you come from, you can connect with present-day relatives that you might not even have known existed. This has happened to me on a few occasions since I started researching and writing about my geneaology findings, and is also a big... Continue Reading →
Today, students all over Sweden, get to wear their student hats for the first time. In Sweden we call it "mösspåtagning," and it's a sure sign spring is here. Tomorrow, we celebrate Walpurgis night/Valborgsmässoafton, and all the bonfires will have choirs wearing their student hats, singing to welcome spring. Looking back to the beginning of... Continue Reading →
We are many who have lost loved ones the past years. Coping with grief is part of life and something we all go through at one point or another, always hoping it will be later, rather than sooner. Through the years I have written a few obituaries. It has always felt a bit strange, trying to... Continue Reading →
What we are experiencing in Europe today is on everyone's mind. No one knows how this will end, how many lifes will be affected or what will happen to our world. WWII is not that far away in the past, and even though my own generation did not have to live through it, our parents... Continue Reading →
As we're finally leaving the dark, cold and poor January behind us in Scandinavia, the Chinese are about to enter their big festivity of the New Year. In 2022 the year of the Tiger starts on the 1st of February. In 1905, the newly baked missionary Olga spent her first Chinese New Year celebrating the... Continue Reading →
... and I have not been writing or researching for such a long time. This autumn has been pretty intense. I have had to make some priority changes - mainly focusing on seeing friends and family when I have not been travelling with work. We've had a short window of social possibilities in Sweden, which... Continue Reading →
During my research into the history of my missionary relatives, I have found a few telegrams. Whenever there was a need for speedy information and one didn’t trust the postal service to deliver in time, the solution was to send a telegram. Letters could take a month to arrive from Europe to China – sometimes... Continue Reading →
What traces will we leave behind, once we're gone? I don't know if my missionary relatives asked themselves that question in respect to anything but their ultimate goal - heaven. To them, the salvation of souls within their mission in China was number one. They didn't try to reach fame or become uplifted members of... Continue Reading →
The Yellow River or Huang He is the second longest river i China after the Yangtze River. It's an impressive flow of water, vital to the transport of goods and people in a country where it's not always been easy to travel by land. Huang He was of course very important for the missionaries as... Continue Reading →
With the pandemic still blocking what used to be our lives, people are looking to dig where they stand. In Sweden, house prices are soaring as we move out of the city centres to do our distance work from a more pleasant environment. People now mainly look for that extra room where you can put... Continue Reading →
From the stories my grandmother used to tell me when I was little, there is one I often think about come Christmas. It was 1895 and my grandfather's parents, Dagny and Robert, were newlyweds. They lived in a small Chinese mountain village called Hancheng in the northwest. There were no other Europeans there, and it... Continue Reading →
How I love research! It's something about finding those connections throughout time that fascinates me. When you make that discovery you didn't expect to - even if it's a tiny one. It's like laying a puzzle where you don't have all the pieces when you start and you never know how big that puzzle is... Continue Reading →
I noticed that I often refer to my grandparents' and their parents' different experiences with the dangerous robber bands that were an inevitable part of travelling in China back in the days. The stories of how my relatives met and escaped different robbers have been part of a narrative that's been following me throughout my... Continue Reading →
"We had two scout troops. One for the boys and one for the girls." My grandmother Edna always told her childhood stories in a very soft voice. Her life stories were my bedtime fairytales, and perhaps that is why I remember them so vividly. "When we had days off, we went on hikes down to... Continue Reading →
Staycation can be a way of discovering your own environment. In this post my grandparents staycation in the 1950's is a backdrop to my own staycation in 2020.
About what one might think is lost forever can turn up most unexpectedly - and perhaps even better.
Her name was Li-Niang. She worked with Olga and Nils at the station in Dali/Tungchowfu in China. Li-Niang was a hard-working woman, who helped my great grandparents take care of their children. My grandmother Edna loved Li-Niang. It was Li-Niang who taught her Chinese, who made sure she got bathed and hid Edna when bandits... Continue Reading →
My grandparents were both born in China - only five days apart. They met for the first time when they were one year old and later became friends, fiancés and a couple for life. When my grandparents were 14 years old, they had to leave China due to the turmoil at the time. My grandmother... Continue Reading →
Do you get frustrated when the bus or train is late, or all the roads are clogged, and you have to sit in car queues waisting your valuable time? One of the reasons I use my bike whenever the weather allows, is that I don't like to wait to get going. I want to decide... Continue Reading →
The discovery of a rare photograph of my great grandmother playing in the snow.
Thérèse Amnéus 