At Easter I traveled with my son, Victor, to Sweden where we spent a couple days of our trip in Småland playing genealogy tourists. We stopped by the churches in Målilla, Lönneberga and Karlstorp, stayed in Eksjö, visited the farms at Vimmarp, Kolshult and Boda and hiked in to see Bomåla, the site of Husartorp N:r 34 where Jonas Klang and
Maja Lisa Nilsdotter farmed and raised their twelve children.
The area is remarkably like the hills and forests of northwestern Pennsylvania punctuated with small glacial lakes like those of western New York. Lots of trees, lots of stones, a few farms and not many people. Small dirt roads crisscross the forests and connect the farms to the villages. Today it is mostly timberland. We had some light snow during our stay and the snow pack remained from this year's long winter.
Before
the trip, I found a 1944 economic map
of the area that confirmed that Bomåla under Boda was located at the HT
marked on the 1876 map that was the basis for the army map indicating the location of husartorp 34 (see my earlier post). This corresponds to coordinates 57.48° N and 15.67° E if you want to visit there using Google Earth.
Today
this location is in the middle of a timber company's land. We talked with a
neighbor in one of the two houses in Boda and he confirmed that the
location was correct, but that the house would have been gone a long
time ago. We walked through a foot of snow along the old path (now a logging road) about
a kilometer (1100 yds) to the
likely site of the farmstead, now in a clearing. Possibly some of the farm
land was still kept clear but more likely it had been clear-cut. I didn't see any remains of the house nor clues to its exact location.
These
are photos of the area. The glacial boulders are likely the former
playground equipment of our ancestors but I didn't find any graffiti.
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| Road from Karlstorp to Äntsebo near Boda |
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| Logging road into site |
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| Clearing midway to site |
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| Bend in the path likely near location of house |
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| A playground of boulders |
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| The walk back out |
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| This is the main house of the farm at Boda |
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| Falun red house paint and white trim - classic |
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This is a barn and a road leading down to a couple
of other houses that form part of Boda |
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| Victor at Målilla church |
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