I’m surprised we don’t hear more DNA stories like this, particularly in Scandinavia where the widespread use of patronymics would channel research along these lines.
The Bure family in Sweden, a prominent family since medieval times, has a project devoted to using yDNA to investigate the early origins of their patrilineage.
They recently found a match whose accumulated mutations show he must belong to a branch that separated from their line in historic lines but would not be descended from their earliest known ancestor.
Every genealogist’s dream, but it takes work. And a bit of luck.
We have a similar situation with the Svanström connection to the Briese family but we haven’t attracted the same level of attention a prominent family like the Bures does.
The yDNA suggests the common ancestor of the Svanströms and Brieses lived within historic times. Maybe in the 1600s or 1700s. And now we have a closer connection to the Kruse family. The Briese family has a formal project. We’re tagged along with them.
Our earliest proven ancestor was Peter Jönsson Cavat (1732-1759). His son Jonas adopted the name Svanström. Some descendants exchanged Svanström for Ögrim and Øgrim.
Because of the geographic distribution of our closest yDNA matches, it now seems clear Peter Cavat’s paternal ancestor, not so far back, came to Sweden from what is now Germany. Perhaps from in or near Lütjenburg in Schleswig-Holstein, up near the Danish border. That’s where our Kruse cousins originated. (My sisters might perk up here: this is the same town where Grandma Place and the Gottschs originated.)
Both Peter Cavat and Jonas Svanström were connected through their wives to the German merchant community. There are several Kruse families in Sweden. The ones I’ve been able to track have been from Germany. That makes sense; Kruse is a German name that means curly. Some were even in Östergötland and Kalmar, near the Svanström family.
My guess is that we’ll turn out to be a branch of one of those families, but we need more testing of Swedish Kruses to make it work. Testing will help both by including and excluding possible connections.
- “Bure-trädet ritas om i grunden” (The Bure tree is basically redrawn). Bure DNA <buredna.sjolunds.se>, Dec. 26, 2019. Retrieved Apr. 23, 2020.