This family website is welcome to genealogists who wish to view the ancestors of our family. However, the main purpose of the site is for family members to be able to view and exchange information. Family details and pictures for living relatives are only accessible by family members.
It has been a joy to learn about the history of my family, but it is an ongoing process to bring these personal experiences together. To better encourage family members to participate, I have divided my fathers' and mothers' families into separate Tribal pages.
This website is dedicated to the ancestors and decendants of the Wasmouth family. If you click on the family tree, the first family member that you will see is Johan "Hjalmar" Wasmouth (1853- 1898). It is only fitting that the family tree begins with him as the spelling of his surname survives among many family branches today. It is also natural to begin with Hjalmar because many known LIVING members in this tree can trace their family to his children.
LIVING family members who are decendants of Hjalmar have a host of different family names today: Cederlund; Markovits; Bergväll; Dunström; Ohlsson; Lousseief; Hällqvist; Svensson; Broman; Eklund; Harrison; Fehling; Svadling; Wågman; Walhgren; Rytenberg; Wernberg; Brännstrom; Campeti; Wassmouth; and of course Wasmouth. There are likely more, and I hope to be able to add them to the family tree as family members come forward to exchange information.
Each family member who has access to this website can update and change information pertaining to their immediate family (parents; siblings; and children). This is important because I am the first to acknowledge that some information may be missing or inaccurate. There can be no better resource for updating information than immediate family. I also encourage family to share PHOTOS and stories. Please take the time to view the photo index - pictures are the best way to connect! Family photos can be entered into the index or directly into the family tree. To help facilate this, I have created individual Albums in the photo index for each child of Hjalmar Wasmouth. Hjalmar had 10 children; and under each of these children are their descendants. You just need to look for your ancestor to find your family group. There is plenty of space for more uploading of pictures - so please feel free to contribute! If you have found errors outside your immediate family, please contact me. I have also created individual Albums for Early ancestors, and for branching families of interest. This also includes the families of many spouses, and my grandmother's family.
** As a reminder, only family members of this site can see pictures of living family members. Please do not exchange or share any pictures outside this website without the explicit conscent of that family member.
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SOME HISTORY OF THE WASMOUTH NAME
The family name has had a number of spellings over the generations. The prior spelling "Wasmuht" was likely the prevalent spelling of Hjalmar's father Johan Teodor "Little John" (1822-1888), and his grandfather Johan Gustav "Big John" (1791-1876), his great grandfather Philip (1760-1829), and his great great grandfather Emanuel (1731-1797). However, Hjalmar spelled his last name "Wassmouth" in some of the letters that he wrote to his wife Amalia, and there are instances where some of Big John's children spelled their name this way. Family documentation and some public records have also shown instances where the family name was spelled "Wassmuht"; and the archives show a more German spelling "Wassmuth" or "Wasmuth" with respect to Emanuel Wasmuht's ancestors. These variations were likely noted by the family's first major researcher, Ragna Quitsau Olhsson (1905-1998).
It is important to acknowledge Ragna's research and contribution to knowledge of Emanuel's family lineage. She lived in Germany during World War II, and was well suited to deciphering German archives and documents. Through her research, Emanuel Wasmuht's ancestors can be traced to Lingen on the German/Dutch border. In her later years in Sweden, she published a number of articles about the family history; and went on to write a book about her life in Germany and her family experiences.
Ragna, and other dutch genealogists like Richard Rhulshof (www.rhulshof.nl) further confirmed information about Emanuel Wasmuht's father Philipp Wasmuht (1690-1773), his grandfather Johann Wasmuht (1643-1716), and his great grandfather George Wasmuth. However, Emanuel's great great grandfather warrants more research.
It is not entirely clear, but Ragna may have been the first to make the assertion that Cornelius Gruber Was Mut Hat (1580-1650) was the earliest known ancestor of this particular family line. No other family trees or research have thus far been uncovered which supports this hypothesis. As the story has been told, Cornelius was a common lord/vassal within the feudal system in the area of Kassel, in Northern Hesse, Germany. His subjects/peasants, or some other group, rebelled and forced him to flee. There is no existing evidence to show that either Cornelius, or his son George settled in Lingen. Documents from the Lingen Archive only show that his grandson Johann, and great grandson Philip Wasmuht were established there. This will diserve future research.
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NOTABLE DISCOVERIES IN THE FAMILY TREE: SWEDISH ANCESTRY
I cannot overemphasize the incredible work by Per Arne "Pelle" Hällqvist in researching family history. He has signficantly expanded Ragna's work to include extensive research into the Swedish lines. Through time consuming and tedious research into the Swedish Church books, new branches are continously being added. This is particularly true of Hjalmar's wife Amalia Josefina Söderstrom Lundin (1855-1946), his mother, Anna Brita "Nanna" Andersdotter (1825-1913), and his daughter-in-law Lydia Margareta "Margit" Lovisa Lundqvist (1890-1968). I am extremely happy to have exchanged and gained access to so much of his work from across the ocean.
Early Ancestors of Amalia have been especially interesting, some of whom commonly appear in genealogical trees, and can easily be found with a name search within the genealogical community. Ancestors of interest to Amalia are: Nils Larsson (1500-); Welam Claesson Benoni (1580-1676); Per Nilsson Västgote (1586-1688); Algot Oloffson (abt. 1514-), and his son Erland Algotsson (1538- 1628). Family trees of Welam and Per Nilson, for example, are numberous, as three of Welam's sons married three of Per Nilsson's daughters.
Early Ancestors of Anna Brita "Nanna" which are of interest for future research is the Ringbom family of Gotland. There are many genealogists which share common ancestors with this family.
** As a side note, Pelle has also researched ancestors for my grandmother, Marianne Elisabeth Carlsson Lorelius (1917-2009) on her paternal side. Research through the Swedish church books on Marianne's maternal side have been done by her cousin Gustav Gunnar. I should note that LIVING family members of Marianne's family can also find their ancestors on this website, and I really hope and look forward to them visiting and exchanging information. Again, I am especially interested in confirming information about living family members.
As is the case with Amalia, some ancestors of Marianne's mother Hilma Sophia Carlsson (1894-1972) are also profoundly interesting. Ancestral families such as the Tolfs and the Shults "Sholls" intermarried often over several generations, and many genealogists today have confirmed their descendants through the church books.
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NOTABLE DISCOVERIES IN THE FAMILY TREE: DUTCH AND SPANISH ANCESTRY
In the last couple of years, Pelle and I have made some fantastic discoveries into the family lines of Emanuel Wasmuht's second wife, Johanna Margareta Tiquet (1728-1800). She was the great granddaughter of Scipio Mijtens (1632-1688) and Elisabeth Grill (-1693) on her maternal side. Early family documents showed a relationship to the famous family of painters, the "Mijtens". However beyond Scipio, the exact relationship was not exactly clear, and for some time it was believed that Scipio Mijtens might be the son of Isaac Mijtens (one among four brothers and 3 sisters: including Daniel, David and Abraham). This was quickly corrected with the publication of "Jan Mijtens: Leben und Werk" by Alexandra Bauer in 2006, which included an in depth genealogical survey of the Mijtens family. Without doubt, we now know that Scipio was the son of Abraham Mijtens (-1670) and Sara Elsevier (1663-1648); and therefore Hjalmar Wasmouth's 4th great grandfather. A number of other family trees have come to light which support this, including the old Adelvapens family page for the Mijtens.
It should be noted that in the 1600's & 1700's, segments of influential families from the Netherlands migrated to Sweden. Examples of these families included the "Peil Family" (Emanuel's first wife Johanna Peil), the "Grill Family" (Elisabeth's father Anthony Grill), and the "Mijtens Family" (Scipio and his cousins Dietrich and Martin). Emanuel Wasmuht himself immigrated to Sweden a few years later in 1754 from the Dutch/German border town of Lingen. He was the pastor of the Dutch Reformist Church in Stockholm, of which these families all belonged, and therefore had constant contact with them. It is not surprising to know, therefore, that these families intermingled and intermarried often. Emanuel's father-in-law, Isaac Tiquet (1690 - 1693), who was a member of the Church Steering committee, also likely facilitated a relationship with these many families.
The discovery of Abraham Mijtens(I) and his wife Sara Elsevier(II) have profound implications for future research. This is especially true of Sara's mother Barbara Lopez de Haro (III).
*** PLEASE SEE INFORMATION AND HISTORY OF HJALMAR'S ANCESTORS UNDER STORIES BELOW: