I found some more old time Stricklans!

Once upon a time in November of last year I was stumped about my Stricklan line of ancestry. There was an Abel Stricklan (Stricklin/Strickland/Stracklin, depending on the source) in Virginia but he had no parents or siblings. It was like poor little Orphan Abel.

I searched through as many records as Family Search had to find more information about Mr. Abel, and since I thought he was our Civil War relative I was very surprised not to find anything besides later census records with no more information than I already knew. He was just a line end.

This week at our Young Women activity we got all the girls signed up for Family Search so they could start looking for their ancestors, and one of the ward members who was helping suggested again that if we couldn't find any documents to help further our line, we could try looking at ancestry.com, since people with an LDS account get a free membership there too. When he said tha,t I thought, yeah, I really ought to look there (especially since my friend Coppelia had mentioned it months ago and I thought I'd like to check it out then, but I didn't).

Let's sum up the next two hours real quick because the process of looking at, confirming, and linking records to your ancestors takes a lot more time than it would seem: I LOOKED and there were RECORDS of Abel at Ancestry.com, and once I put his father Samuel in, I got Joseph (his father) and Samson (his father) too. I got some more on the maternal sides of these lines as well, but it's going to take me a long time to catch up with the records I found. Those Stricklans have been 'Mercans for a very long time (which explains my dad's patriotism) (which is only a joke if you know my dad) (which is not to imply that he's super unpatriotic but if you don't get the joke it may sound that way) (that's probably enough explanation).

As it turns out, Abel wasn't in the Civil War (his son William was, whom I already knew about but didn't have any Civil War records for). I don't have any pictures of Abel, but here is a very happy looking William with his wife Nancy--and I think I see some of Calvin's/my/my dad's/my grandpa's cheekbones peeking up over that snowy beard.

O Pioneer: Hakan Andersen

Next on the "easy" pioneer list is Hakan Andersen. Of course, as with Nancy Naomi, it was really a couple whose story I knew, but in this one he is the main character for some reason, just as NN was the main character in her story. I'm not sure why this is, but nevertheless it's how I think of them.

The bad news here is also my motivation to learn more about family history: I thought I knew the story but now I'm not so sure. The Hakan Andersen Book would set me straight, but it resides at my parents' house (so mom, you may have to set me straight). Here's what I think happened.

Hakan (or Hogan) (or Haakan) (or about ten variations) crossed the plains as a young-but-not-that-young convert to the Church. When he arrived in Salt Lake, as a strong healthy man, he was asked to go back and help others across the plains. There he met a girl and fell in love with her...however, she was sick or something and died. I think. But the good news is that this girl had a friend! And she was Cecelia. And Hakan and Cecelia got married and had a family and moved to Idaho.

This is the lineage: Hakan and Cecelia had a daughter named Hannah, whose son Hakan Ostlin went by Ostlin and was my paternal grandma Ada's father. So in reverse, Me/Dave/Ada/Ostlin/Hannah/Hakan & Cecelia.

Hakan & Cecelia's family

Hannah Andersen, presumably before she married John Alfred Hanson

But listen here, I am not the only one who thought I would celebrate Pioneer Day by exploring my pioneer ancestors. Familysearch.org itself sort of stole my thunder by sending me a list of all of the pioneer ancestors I had, complete with company and any information they have on the person.  Holy smokes, that makes my aspiration to find out who my Pioneer ancestors are about 97% more likely to happen. Thanks, Familysearch. I don't know how I would have found out on my own; I really have a lot (or everything) to learn about family history.

So here is what Familysearch.org taught me. Hakan crossed in 1859 with the George Rowley Company. Cecelia Swenson crossed in 1863 with an Unknown Company. They were both from Sweden (but I already knew that one).

You can find your own Pioneer Ancestors on Familysearch.org too, I think. Do it! It's cool.