Program:
“Fika Findings”
Ron Floberg and Brian Rapp
This presentation will focused on notes and abbreviations disclosed in the Swedish Church Records. The one-on-one FIKA sessions have provided translations and definition/explanation of items of interest many researchers would overlook. These findings often provide information, other than just names and dates, about our ancestors.
Brian Rapp
Brian Rapp has been a member of the Swedish Genealogy Society of Colorado since 2010. Just prior to joining he started researching his mother’s Swedish ancestry and continues to this day. Most of her ancestors came from Småland and Östergötland and they settled in the Jamestown, New York area. Currently he is a research mentor. He participated in the 2013 and 2015 SwedGen seminars in Sweden and visited with distant relatives that he found on both occasions. A member of SAG and The Colorado Genealogical Society and has subscriptions to DISBYT, SVAR, and ArkivDigital. He lives with his wife Claire Hanley in Jamestown during the summer and in the winter, they live in Seattle, Washington. He retired in October of 2016 after working 37 years in the aerospace industry. Brian previously lived in Littleton, Long Beach and Orange County, California. His other hobbies are Swedish folk dance and bicycling.
Roland Floberg
Ron grew up in a predominately Swedish community in North Central Kansas and graduated from Kansas State University. He began his Swedish ancestry search in the late 1970’s, has visited Sweden four times, meeting newly found relatives in the process and served two terms as President of the Swedish Genealogical Society. He is a mentor in the Society FIKA one-on-one program. He and Cheryl have been Coloradoans since the 1960’s interrupted by three years in the Chicago area.
Vignettes from “They Never Saw the Ocean”
by Kjell Andersson
Author Dan Korn visited around 40 people living in the Västergötland province during 1992 when they were in their 80’s and 90’s. Most of them still lived the way people lived during the 1800s. Most of them never travelled outside their own parish and therefore never had a chance to see the ocean. Something that did not bother them at all. Gustaf Johansson Vacker was one of them. Kjell Andersson will recount the story of Gustaf but also show many interiors and exteriors from the area.