Roots
    of Curtiss Wikstrom

     My Grandfather Peter Wikstrom came from Northern Sweden.  My Grandmother Christina Kongsvig came from Norway.  We are aware of a number of relatives living in Sweden today, but not any from Grandmother's side in Norway.  If someone in the family knows them, please send us some names and addresses.
     My Grandfather Louis Hahn's family came from Germany, as was true of my Grandmother Gertrud.  We do have Hahn relatives in America and Germany.  We would appreciate if anyone who has maintained contacts with these relatives will send us some names and addresses.
 
Swedish Roots

     It is possible that if we traced back far enough we are somehow related to most people in Sweden.  And of course each of us has four Grandparents, 8 Great Grand Parents, 16 Great Great Grand Parents, 32 Great Great Great Grand parents and so on.  So the relatives we usually know are those within a generation or two of our own.  And we soon lose track of those.  But we have been made aware of a number of people in Sweden, going back several generations.  The line back to where your name starts is one of the first routes one takes when looking back at ones roots.

     Not all people in Sweden had family names like Wikström years ago, and some still don't today.  When coming to America, Petrus, the son of Jöns, took on the family name Wikstrom, which had been used by his Grandmother's family, and Anglicized his name to Peter. Peter's children learned Swedish before they went to school in America.  But there his children learned English, and his grandchildren were raised in the English language.  Below are a couple of branches of family trees which produced my Grandfather Petrus, Jöns son. G=Great   GGGG= Great Great Great Great grandfather. g=grandfather *Per Andersson was an early settler in Avaträsk village.

Petrus Jönsson Wikstrom had Three Brothers and a sister:  Anders Jönsson Vikström 1846, Erik Jönsson 1849-1921, Jöns Jönsson Vikström 1853-1935, Brita Matilda Jönsdotter 1856-62, and an adopted son Helmer.  We are most familiar with his brother Jöns because he and Petrus came to America together. Petrus came to America in 1885, when he was 26 years old. Jöns returned to Sweden, however, because he had not brought his wife, and they had a Son Jöns Viktor on the way.

     During June and Early July of 2002 we visited a number of relatives in Sweden. You can read Discovering my Swedish Roots, the story behind our discoveries, and you can see who we are aware of and who we have visited in Sweden.