Family Name Help.
Hello,
I was wondering if anyone could help me. My family name seems to be quite a mystery and I've been trying to get some information on it.
My family name is Björson. I know my family comes from Sweden (although some seem to have come from Norway a long time ago) as I have records of it. Where things seem to get strange is the spelling of my family name. I can trace back people with the family name Björson to the 1800s and before. But from that time until now the siblings of my relatives throughout history seem to go between the name Björson, Björsson and Björnson. It's never consistent.
As I stated, my family has the name Björson; which from my research on the present time period doesn't really seem to exist anymore in Sweden, but mostly in the USA. Where did Björson come from? And why is it so rare now? This is something I can't figure out and was hoping someone could help me solve this mystery.
Thank you.
Comments
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Good morning,
Björson can be found both in Sweden and Norway.
Remember that parts of Sweden use to belong to Norway, and also it was not uncommon that Swedish people during the late 1850- moved to Norway to work.
Its about 100 people in Sweden with last name Björson and 1200 people with the last name Björnson/Björnsson right now, when I did a quick check.
Björson comes from the old Surname tradition in Sweden (before 1850 about) when children got there fathers first name and added son or dotter to it. So Björson is Son of Björ/Björn
There is diffrent spelling that has appeared during the centuries as you have noticed Björson, Björnson, Björnsson.. most of the times it comes from when the priest wrote in the parish records, they alot of times was not so correctly spelling the names. Thats why sometimes when we read old parish record get confused when there is diffrent spelling and we start to doubt were looking at the correct person even if the Birthdate and everything els are correct.
Yours sincearly
Ulf D
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