Nikaner A Bernelius

[Phil Carter]

Hello Trebor,

I have an idea about that Swedish church, and will come back to it (hopefully) later.

best wishes

Phil

[tnb]

Did the Swedish church in Swedenborg Square keep any records that survive? I am guessing so, as we know of Liz Stride applying for charity there. Perhaps we might find mention of 'our' Bernelius in there, especially seeing as he was supposedly a religious man (preaching in the street, allegedly).

LONG shot, but that seeems to be the order of the day around here right now! Good thinking 'outside the box' Phil, as ever.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Fish,

Please do indeed search around some more.. if you can find another reference to this name that gets nearer to the one that I found from the 1881census, I would be delighted! It was all tentaive as said, but nearer than we were, I humbly suggest?

best wishes

phil

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Sounds to me like it could even be a Norwegian name? Maybe he's really Fogelma.
It's difficult to say but since it's not a very common name, atleast that should narrow down the field. Not sure what the deal is with researching Finnish records, tried to research a Finnish passenger on the Titanic once and ran into several brick walls simultaneously, but it's always helpful if there's somebody in the country where the research needs to be carried out.

Either way, good work on the find Phil and hopefully something more comes of it!

Cheers,
Adam.

[The Good Michael]

Fish,

Okay smarty-pants. Find him.

Mike

[Fisherman]

When you have a Swede on the boards, why not use him?

Bernelius is a name that is not common here, but it sounds as Swedish as any other Swedish name just the same. The -us ending is a quite common one.

Looking it up in a telephone directory, I found three Bernelius-es, all of them female, and all of them living in the southernmost parts of Sweden.

As for changing Nikaner into Nikander, I would not recommend it - it is changing a christian name for a surname. As suspected, though, Nikaner is not the ordinary spelling of that christian name - it should be Nikanor. The same telephone directory presents me with not a single Nikaner, but 23 Nikanors. The name was a lot more common back in Victorian times, but due to the fact that we have an author that is quite popular and whose pseudonym name is Nikanor Teratologen, the name has caught on again.

Anything more you need to know about Swedish names ...??

The best
Fiskaren
(Swedish for Fisherman)

[Phil Carter]

Hello Mike,

I think, unless we have a major breakthrough, that's as far as we are going to get! There is a chance with the Berelius surname though..if he was using his mother's family name.. or a place name. His mother seemed to be born Drugge, so I will go to a place name theory.

best wishes

Phil

[The Good Michael]

Phil,

Berneliu and Bernelius can be Latvian surnames as well. I think it's a tough task you've set yourself, my friend.

Mike

[Phil Carter]

Hello Mike,

Many thanks...just to add that Berelius is an uncommon Swedish surname, Bernelius a (as you correctly write) Latinized first name and for those wishing to know the pronounciation of Nikander, it is "Nick-and-air", as in the sound of the French "er" with a grav accent.

I checked all the passenger lists in and out of the UK, and in and out of the USA too. Nothing. I also checked the 1891 census. Nothing. He may have died on a boat somewhere, or simply plodded off back to Finland or Sweden.
For me, I would lightly guess at his real name being A (for Anton) Berelius Nikander. An "A. Nikander" did sail in to Liverpool from New York, but this wasn't until 1907. Perhaps Jukka can have a look at some Finnish archives? My Finnish is very limited, I'm afraid!

best wishes

Phil

Edit:-

Looking through the Finnish registers for Ferdinand Nikander his christening is here......

03 APR 1851
Christening:
07 APR 1851 Urjala, Hame, Finland
Death:
Burial:

Parents:
Father: IMMANUEL ROBERT NIKANDER Family
Mother: ALEXANDRA DRUGGE

[The Good Michael]

Phil,

Good snooping. Bernelius looks rather Swiss than Swedish to me because of the Latinized name. Indeed, some people confuse Switzerland and Sweden simply because of the SW at the beginning. Calling it Helvetia would avoid that confusion.

Cheers,

Mike

[Phil Carter]

Hello all,

It is strange, but this only just struck me after all these years. There I was, thinking of Scandinavian connections with the WM, when my mind turned to Nikaner A Bernelius. I said the name out-loud, as it were, in a Swedish dialect.
Then I realised something so simple. When saying the name "Nikaner", the actual spelling is normally with a "d" after the "n", making the "d" silent.

So off I troll into the various search engines, and in the Latterday Saints family research site I found this:-
(http://www.familysearch.org/eng/sear...rch_census.asp)

Firdnand NICKANDER
Male
Birth Year <1851>
Birthplace (Foreign), Finland
Age 30
Occupation Dock Dayman
Marital Status U <Unmarried>
Head of Household Charles LANGLEY
Relation Lodger
Disability
Dwelling 40 Chilton Street
Census Place Rotherhithe, Surrey, England

This Nickander was in the UK in 1881, living in Rotherhithe, down in Docklands.
His year of birth is ten years wong for our Nikaner (1861 instead of 1851)
He is born in Finland, not Sweden.

Looking through the Latterday Saints site, and various others, I realised that only a few Swedish people had this surname, whereas it was infact a Finnish name. The Swedes with the surname lived in the East of Sweden, and the majority of the Finns with this name lived in the West of Finland. (Still today there are many Swedish families of Finnish decent, and many Finnish families of Swedish decent, living in the towns near to the border area of the two countries, and those having sailed over between the two countries.) However that said, some US citizens had their "Nikander" roots from Sweden....hmmm

I looked then at the surname "Bernelius".. which sounded wrong to me, and sure enough, a family name of BERELIUS existed, in Sweden. The practice of having two surnames was common in Scandinavia (and still is by the way). I now started to see that Berelius Nikander, or Nikander Berelius, was now far more appropriate than the Nikaner, the one we have been given.
The question was, had I found the "Nikaner A Bernelius" that was briefly arrested as a suspect during the time of the WM?

Sadly, the answer is no. After a pretty thorough seach all over the place, the nearest I can come to our friend Nikaner A Bernelius, is the one printed above, from the 1881 census. The rarity of the name Nikander, in the UK, suggests a small possibility that Firdnand (Ferdinand?) Nickander, born 1851 in Finland, was the Swedish man picked up in late 1888.

best wishes

Phil