Knaften

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.

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.

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.