Our Vacation in Sweden

In June of 2006, Julie and I traveled to Sweden for the second time in three years to meet and visit with the descendents of my Swedish ancestors. It was a wonderful trip and we met many new friends. I knew little about my Swedish ancestry until I began researching my genealogy during the summer of 2002 while visiting the Swedish neighborhood where my father grew up in Chicago. That research led to my locating and corresponding with Swedish relatives later that year, and to a trip to Sweden during the summer of 2003. I continued to correspond with and discover other Swedish relatives, which led to our visit in 2006. During our visit, we stayed at the homes of our friends in Sweden, visited ancestral home sites, participated in a celebration of Swedish emigrants who left for America long ago, attended a wonderful family reunion dinner and toured local points of interest. I must thank three people in particular for their efforts to plan these events and for hosting us while we were there. They are in the picture below. Left to right are - Stina Källtorp, Margareta Thorsson and Sonja Johansson. I share grandparents with all three of them at different points in our family history. A special thank-you goes to Margareta who is very active and a leader in her community in historical preservation and genealogy activities. I know she was the force behind much of the planning. I'd also like to thank Inge Danielsson for the photos he took and provided to me. Many of the photos at the reunion dinner are Inge's. There are others who were gracious hosts that made us feel so welcome too. I'll talk about them in these web pages where I show their pictures.

Many web pages are still under construction. In the interest of getting a version done, I will not caption most of the photos. There are some general descriptions at the side of each photo panel. You'll need to use a little imagination or contact me and I'll provide explanations.

Thanks to all of you in Sweden for your hospitality. We so enjoyed meeting and visiting with you.

Bob and Julie

Stina Källtorp, Margareta Thorsson and Sonja Johansson