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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
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
Good thinking 'outside the box' Phil, as ever.
Point taken, though - I´ll give it a shot as soon as I can find the time.
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