Introduction
Welcome! My name is Anders Hellster and I live in Lidköping, Sweden, where I earlier worked at the Post Office and have been engaged in the Church and parish life for long time. Today I work with education. I was born in 1976 and have since the age of 16 been interested in genealogy and family history.
Here at andershellster.com I will present results of my genealogical research, but there is room for other content too. A special project of mine is labelled ”Stenliden” and a description is given below, along with an assortment of explanations and blog summaries. For further access to the other pages you may also use an automatic translation tool.
Stenliden
Some blog posts and a special section, named Stenlidensläkten, are dedicated to a military family that flourished 200 years ago and whose connections I have investigated both backward and forward in time. In its center stand the soldier Johannes Andersson Sten (1772-1827) and his wife Karin Andersdotter (1780-1834), who were my great great great great grandparents in the paternal line. They lived at the countryside, close to the city of Kungälv, in a province called Bohuslän at the Swedish West coast. Sten served the provincial regiment from 1796 to 1813 and participated as ranger in a military campaign against Norway in 1808. When he retired the family moved to Harestad’s parish, where Karin was born. Sten suffered from poverty and illness but he and his wife nevertheless succeeded to raise several children, among which five sons continued on the military path, like their father. Homestead of the family became Stenliden, a small slope of land with a cottage, named after Sten himself.
All lines of descent are not fully proven but evidence suggest a military descent on both the paternal and maternal side of the family. Johannes Sten seems to have been son and grandson of soldiers at Västgöta-Dals regiment in the province of Skaraborgs län. His supposed father was named Anders Kampe – a vice corporal who after a naval battle in 1788 fell in Russian custody for two years. Karin Andersdotter’s paternal line leads through generations of dragoons back to an early 1700’s cavalryman during the reign of King Charles XII. Unlike many other rural commoners this family had a last name that was transferred from father to son: Nöös, probably of German origin. Karin also had family ties to farmers in the local area and I believe that it was her mother who provided a connection to the land where Stenliden was situated.
Among the grandchilden we see a large movement to the urban area of Gothenburg where work waited in the factories and at the port. In the next generation, around 1900, patronyms and individual soldier names were turned into proper family names.
By these pages I hope to raise interest for my project to collect information about the different branches of the family tree, until our own time. Today descendants live not just in in Sweden but also in United Kingdom, USA, Canada and South Africa – hence this information in English. Are you one of them? Perhaps you can share some information with me: genealogical data, stories or photos? But a simple comment about your impression or a question about the content is much appreciated too. Feel free to write!
Explanations
These words and concepts refer to conditions in ancient Sweden, particularly on the countryside. Some of the abbreviations are my own while others are conventional among historians and genealogists.
> = offspring is known
# = no offspring
{1}/{2}/{3}/{x} = marks for children of different relationships, where numbers refer to marriages
AD, ArkivDigital = a company that provides pictures of source material
ana (pl. anor) = ancestor
arbetare = laborer
attest = certificate
backsittare = person living in a cottage without land
barn = children
begraven = buried
bil., bilaga = appendix
bild = picture
bror = brother
bonde = farmer
bou., bouppteckning = inventory of estate
båtsman = here: seaman in the Royal Navy
d., död = dead, deceased
dräng = farmhand, unmarried young man
dtr, dotter = daughter
dopvittne = witness of baptism
döpt = baptised
efterkommande = descendant
el., eller = or
f., född = born
fadder (pl. faddrar) = sponsor, godfather, godmother
far = father
fb., födelsebok = birth record
fl., flyttlängd = list of people moving in and out
flytta = move, leave
fsg, församling = parish
gift med = married to
GLA, Göteborgs landsarkiv = Provincial Archive in Gothenburg
gmr, generalmönsterrulla = muster roll from a regiment’s meeting led by a general
Göteborg = Gothenburg
hustru = wife
härad = judicial district (formed by a group of parishes)
häradsrätt = district court
karta = map
kbf., kyrkobokföring = church records in all
komminister = assistant vicar
korpral = corporal
KrA, Krigsarkivet = Archive of the Armed forces
kyrka = church
kyrkväktare = sexton
kyrkoherde = vicar
källa (pl. källor) = source
län = administrative province on State level
mor = mother
mtl., mantalslängd = census record for taxation
o., och = and
h.h., hans hustru = his wife
okänd/okänt = unknown
opag., opaginerad = no page number
pastorat = church district (formed by a couple of parishes)
piga = maid, maid-servant
RA, Riksarkivet = National Archive, which presides over GLA and KrA
ryttare = cavalry soldier
skräddare = taylor
släkt = (extended) family
släktforskning = genealogical research
släkting = relative, kinsman
sn, socken = parish
soldat = (infantry) soldier
syster = sister
t., till = to
torpare = cotter or sharecropper
u., under = beneath
u.ä., utom äktenskapet = out of wedlock
vid = at
vb., vigselbok = register of marriages
åbo = tenant farmer
öde = destiny
Blog Summaries
These summaries refer to texts that are predominantly connected to the Stenliden project.
Dec. 21, 2025
Genealogical chronicle of 2025. Among new findings I have discovered three more children of the ancestor Daniel Nöös. One of them, Maria, was in 1713 a 17th years old house maid i Gothenburg, when she got accused for stealth from her household. She sat imprisoned during the trial, for four and a half month, but was eventually acquitted.
June 19, 2024
Tunes from fife and shawm. About people related to Johannes Sten’s presumed grandfather (at his maternal side), Johan Johansson. Two of them were musicians. Firstly Johan Johansson’s brother in law Anders Starin, who served as kind of sexton in the parish of Vänersborg from 1744 to 1764 and allegedly played the organ. Secondly his presumed father, Johan Frisk, who started to play the fife at Västgöta-Dals regiment in 1685 but continued with the shawm a few years later. As a military musician this man possessed a farm where he bred oxen for sale.
Feb. 3, 2023
The prince and his cap. In two ways I’ve crossed the lines of the Prussian prince Henry, brother of emperor William II, and a high naval officer. In one way, when I inherited a signed photo that he gave to my great grandfather back in 1894, at the 300th anniversary of the birth of king Gustavus Adolphus. My great grandfather (a great grandson of Johannes and Karin) was at the time a private seaman in our Royal Navy. In another way, when I realized that my father often used a sailor’s cap which is named after the same prince.
Jan. 6, 2023
A Delayed Wedding. In the autumn of 1780 the young taylor Anders Nilsson (Nöös) got two children out of wedlock, of whom one was Karin Andersdotter. Mothers were two separate maids, Ingeborg and Annika. His wedding with Annika was delayed since Ingeborg claimed that the taylor had promised her marriage in the first place. The district court investigated the earlier relationship between Anders and Ingeborg and concluded that her statement could not be proven.
Jan. 6, 2023
Places Named after Relatives. Our memory of deceased people strengthens when their names are preserved in the geographical environment. Small and local places was in the past often named after ordinary people, without a certain fame. Such places, like Stenliden in Harestad’s Parish, are often forgotten today while places named by authorities and committees has a higher degree of recognition. Now, where actually is a street which is named by the City of Gothenburg and apparently alludes on one of Johannes’ and Karin’s sons – Elias Lustig. But he shares the honor of the street – Båtman Lustigs gata – with seven other Royal navy seamen who lived at the same place for one an half century and also had Lustig as their last name, according to an old practice in Sweden’s armed forces.
Jan. 6, 2023
Our Mexican Cousin. Nelly Wäsström (a great great granddauhter of Johannes and Karin) was for a short time married to the painter Waldemar Sjölander and together they moved to Mexico in 1946. Nelly stayed there for the rest of her life and cultivated an interest for the native culture. In Sweden she inherited a house, Villa EO, from two older relatives and the blog post discusses whether these were her uncles or her 1st cousins. Eventually the house was haunted by fires, illegal settlements and – in the absence of its owner – an economical fraud.
Nov. 23, 2022
A Christmas Gift Almost 200 Years Ago. Transcription of a document from December 17, 1826, where the Parish board of Harestad decide to assemble a gift of corn to Johannes Sten, due to his horrible condition of illness and poverty. The decision was announced from the pulpit on Christmas Eve.
Anders Hellster 