Erik Ersson

This is the current “working tree” status of the Q-Y11515 branch that has spread over much of northern Scandinavia. (Right klick and choose “view image” or “open image in new tab” to get it Zoomable). Green squares mean that we have at least two kits leading to the same forefather. The orange ones are of course important to get tested to confirm the correctness. The Q-Y11515 branch i part of the big tree of paternal lines.

This slate knife (skifferkniv) was found in Storarmsjö by Johan Albert Häggström born 1889-10-22 in Ström, Bjurholm while digging a ditch. He is a distant relative to me and descendant of Erik Ersson in Knaften. He thinks he hurt the knife with his spade which might have taken the otherwise common elk head (American:moose) ending of from the knife. The culture that made knifes like this is the “slate culture” Skifferkulturen that had its prime 3300-2000 BC and was also present in Norway e.

Hans Ersson, 1655, illustrates the impact an individual can have on the genetic make up of a region. 25% of those born 1890-1930 in Sorsele had a strait paternal line to him according to the database Kråken. Quite extrem! To see if there were more extrem cases I made a histogram of the number of “founding fathers” and their number of descendents in the database with a strait paternal line to them.

The maps illustrates the impact of the “Örträsk Finns” on the interior of Västerbotten by three maps showing how their descendants spread. It is based on the database Kråken which is not compleatly finished for all of Västerbotten but it can anyway give a rough picture of how they spread over the land. For illustration three of the founding fathers are used namely: Johan Philipsson Hilduinen ca 1620-1697 Mårten Hindersson ca 1625-1697 Erik ca 1640 only known from his two sons Erik and Håkan The first map shows the proportion of the persons born 1890-1930 who descend from them.

Visited again the old settlements of some of my forefathers. The house on the picture is standing on the place where Erik Ersson (b. ca. 1669) helped his brother Håkan (b. ca. 1670) to start a farm in Örträsk in 1706. It has not been properly dated but might be from around 1750. (Green dot on the map at the bottom) The map below over Håkans farm is klickable for a large map over Örträsk from 1713.

My pedigree. A lot of inbreeding going on in Västerbotten due to the rapid increase in the population from a small founding population. The part from Leksand, Dalarna has on the other hand very little inbreeding.

Some of Mikael Mikaelssons (Mickel Mickels’n, Gamm-Mickel) decendents that remaind in the area. He had 29 children in 2 marriages. Rapid increase in decendants and a lot of inbreeding in the following generations. Mikael Mikaelssons farfarsfar (Great grandfather) was Erik Ersson.

I visited the ruins of Erik Erssons farm in Knaften several times. Erik is my grandfather 9 generations back. He is confirmed to belong to the haplogroup Q-L804 by 5 kits decending from him and one from his brother Håkan Ersson. Its the blue area “Gammelhemmet” on the map on the bottom. The blue line is a water canal to get water to the farm. Gammelhemmet The map below over Eriks farm is klickable for a larger map from 1726.

View over a part of Örträsket and Mårdberget (English: Marten mountain, Local dialect: Malberget) from Västra Örträsk. Mårdberget has given name to Mårdbergets lappskatteland. There is supposed to be rock carvings on top of it but I did not find them now. Below a map over Mårdbergets lappskatteland from: “Geddas karta, Umeå lappmark 1671”

Here is a more detailed view of the North Swedish subbranch Q-Y45428 of Q-L804. All nine boxes at the bottom are kits tested at ftDNA and verified by “paper research”. Of the nine kits, eight can be followed to Erik, the father of Erik Ersson (6 kits) and Håkan Ersson (2 kits). Erik has made a big contribution to the population of Västerbotten and probably most people in the region can find him on their pedigree.