My Family History is Full of Mystery

To borrow a line from a Taylor Swift song, "You don't know what you don't know."

Ah, but the wonders of modern genetic testing CAN tell you some things you didn't know you don't know. And much of what you probably would have been fine not knowing. Or would rather not know.

In these days what with scientific testing and the almost limitless supply of information flooding the internet, it's almost impossible to keep family secrets, even those hidden for generations. Surprises often come with those DNA results, and not all of them are welcome revelations. Those DNA testing companies even have counselors available to help people process shocks and direct them where to go for help.

My husband's family found that out recently when his siblings took some genetic tests after a brother was diagnosed with a fatal disease that is genetic in nature. None of them appears to have the gene responsible for the rare condition, but they got some surprising information along with that knowledge. Their family history turns out to be much different from what they thought they knew. And some of it may never be clarified, because both of his parents are long deceased.

That spurred two of my children to take their own tests.

The breakdown of ethnicity in their results surprised me, and it varied some from what I THOUGHT I new about my family makeup. Do I want to take my own test? I'm not sure. It probably wouldn't make much difference in how I feel about those in my family, and it would likely raise more questions than I would ever have answers to. Sometimes I think not knowing what I don't know is preferable.

What those numbers don't tell are the stories behind those people in your bloodline - who they were, what their lives were about, and even how they got to where they were or met up with those who eventually became your ancestors.

As far back as my oral family history went on my maternal grandmother's side was to my mysterious great-grandfather, her father - Karl Theodor Bjorklund. I knew his name from my childhood, and the internet says yes, that was his name.

Or was it? Again, I don't know what I don't know.

The story was that Great-Grandpa Karl (supposedly a Swede) was a mercenary soldier. And apparently it was common for those in that trade to have a pseudonym to protect their families in the event they were captured. The family lore is that he was gone most of the time, coming home about once a year for a brief sabbatical, staying just long enough to greet the child who was born during list last adventure and then sire a new one who would arrive before could return again.

So was Karl Theodor Bjorklund his real name, or was it his soldiering name?

And was he really a Swede? There is a record of a man by that name born in Finland, about the right age. It's hard to find any information on Karl; links to his name go to a man by the name of Anton Bjorklund, and his family links are not the same.

You must remember that this is long before the days of official government records. Back in those days notations of births, deaths, and marriages were recorded in church logs and family Bibles, if at all. Many people couldn't read and write, so the family Bible was for those wealthier and better educated families. And if you couldn't afford to pay for the church wedding, there might not be a record of that, either. The only family Bible we had was never to be written in; kept in a protected spot and only brought out on Christmas Eve, when after candlelight church service my father would read to us the 'Christmas story' from the Gospel of Luke, No family records in that book.

(My grandmother ran into this dilemma back in the 1960s when she tried to get citizenship. Unfortunately she was a non-person as far as documents went. She had nothing to prove her country of origin or her birth, and some fire or other disaster at Ellis Island resulted in a loss of records from the time she arrived there by boat from Sweden. Somehow my mother's eldest brother managed to help her get some sort of legal status document that allowed her to remain in the U.S., but without ability to get a passport to travel. So she never returned to Sweden to see her family or her former home.)

All I know of Karl is that he and his Swedish wife, Hilda Ryberg, had 11 children. I don't believe many of them lived to adulthood. By the time I was old enough to pay attention to names and relationships, I only knew of three siblings my grandmother had over in 'the old country.' It appears my Grandma Dewall lost both her father, Karl, and her husband, John the year I was born. Great-grandma Hilda was a little hardier - she lived to the ripe old age of 96.

My grandmother was one of the younger children, but there was at least one more who was born after she left Sweden at the age of 15 or 16. She didn't meet her youngest sister, Ruth, until my grandma's two eldest living brothers - Allan and Eric - came to the US with their wives and Aunt Ruth to celebrate my grandmother's 75th birthday in 1968.

So it appears at least on my mother's maternal side, the trail goes cold with her grandfather Karl. I know very little of him, and what I do know may not even be true. The only thing I know for sure is that my grandmother traveled by boat from Sweden to this country when she was a teenager. And that she met her future husband - also supposedly full Swede - on that boat. And until very recently I thought both of my maternal grandmother's and grandfather's parents were Swedish.

But my children's DNA numbers don't support that. If my mother was indeed100% Swedish, I should be at least 50%, and my children should be at least 25%. But their numbers are far less than that. And I think the missing link is Great-Grandpa Karl - or whatever his name was.

But it also could be that the culprit is my grandfather, John Helmer Dewall. The name is spelled also DeWall by some. And by some quirk of fate, his two brothers had the spelling recorded as a phonetic variant on their papers when they arrived at Ellis Island. Their surname was pronounced as 'deVAHL,' and so that's how theirs got recorded. Three brothers, two family names. Yes, the descendants of John Helmer Dewall as well as Oscar and Eric DeVahl are in fact all related. That might make for a little confusion among the genetic researchers.

Another thing that makes me curious about Grandpa John is the 'de' part of the name. Normally a beginning like that would indicate some French or Dutch origin. Somewhere in the back of my mind there is a fragment about Dutch in our family, but I can't draw it out enough to clarify it. And anyone I could ask is long gone.

I guess I'll never know. But at least now I know a small part of what I don't know. And I have even more questions than I did before. Thanks, 23 & Me.