Elna Sjunesdotter 1839-1894 and Johan Jansen Ahlin 1827-1908 later known as Eleanor Johnson and John Allen

Elna Sjunesdatter 1839-1894 and

Johan Jansen Ahlin  1827-1908 

We don’t know much about Johan Jansen Ahlin as he didn’t write about himself and we haven’t been able to find anything written by his children.  But we do know a few things from historical documents and from the orally transmitted memories of his granddaughter, Myrth Allen Hassell.

 He was born in 1827 in Simtuna Parish, Vastmanland, Sweden and in his early years he lived on his maternal grandfather’s farm, Eknäsbo, according to the Husförslängd (farm census). Eknäsbo was and still is in the town of Simtuna.

“Bo” is Swedish for estate or property, and the farms of Eknasbo and Markusbo, the latter where his father grew up, are still productive farms that stand next to each other on a country road in Simtuna.

When he was 5 he lived with his parents on Borstbo, also in Simtuna and when he was 15 he lived on Phersbo/Säfva in Altuna

 When he was 33 he was living on Sjöbo/Fröstuna  (There’s a town called Sjöbo, the researcher notes “Altuna, Sjöbo is part of Frostuna”, but there is also a farm called Sjöbo about 4 km north of Eknäsbo as the crow flies so the exact location is ambiguous.)

 When he was 34 he was working as a crofter (tenant farmer) “at Sjöbo” and he married his first wife, Sara Christina Pehrsdotter in Altuna.  The record says "commune" which often indicates that the marriage was performed at home.  The year was 1861.  It was her second marriage.

 He was still living at “Altuna, Sjöbo/ Fröstuna”, along with his parents, when he, his wife and his parents were baptized in 1861 (5 months after his wedding) and also when they all emigrated when he was 36 years old, in 1863.

They traveled on the ship John J. Boyd which arrived in New York on May 29, 1863.  They are listed on the passenger list of that ship which sailed from Liverpool on April 30, 1863.  No record has been found of the death of Sara Christina (known as “Stina”).  Family tradition is that she died at sea, but that hasn’t been confirmed.  Johan’s mother, Brita Kaisa Larsdotter, also died before reaching the Salt Lake valley.  A Santaquin history at the Family History Library states that she was buried at Winter Quarters, Iowa.

We know a few things about Johan’s life in Santaquin, Utah as well.   He lived on and farmed a piece of ground at the Y in the road where the main street in Santaquin meets the highway that goes to Eureka. He supported his family with honey (he was a beekeeper) and fruit production, and, when his orchard grew up, sold peaches and apricots.  And the church records from the ward there spell his last name as “Ahleen”, which gives you an idea of how he might have pronounced it.

He married Elna Sjunesdotter, whose name was Americanized to Eleanor Johnson after she arrived in Utah from Sweden.  After she died he married a woman named Caroline Pehrson Bjorkman (b. Dec. 1834 in Åksted, Östergotland, Sweden), who was the widow of John August Bjorkman.

We know even less about Elna than we do about Johan, but we do know that she was born on 28 May 1839 in Sjostorp, Malmo, Sweden.

Elna’s mother (Karna Märtensdotter) was born in Södervidinge, Malmohus, Sweden in 1800 and lived on the family farm with her parents until 1824

Karna Märtensdotter and Sjune Jönsson were married in Södervidinge Dec. 12, 1825.  Sjune was listed as a servant in Lund and Karna was listed as a farm servant in Södervidinge.

The new family must have lived in Lund after that as their daughter, Ingrid (Elna’s older sister) was born there on May 4, 1827.  In that birth record, Sjune is listed as a “miller”.  Karna subsequently gave birth to five little boys there, each of whom died in infancy.  A sixth son, Marten, was born there in May of 1837.  Some researchers say he was born in Lund, according to census records.  Others, that he was born in Sjorstorp, but it’s clear that by the time he was christened in November of that year, the family had moved to Sjöstorp village in Dalby parish, Malmöhus County.

Elna’s birth record has not been found.  There was a church fire in 1883 that destroyed many records and it is thought that this may be why.  We do have that information, however, written down by Elna’s husband in his “Temple Record Book” where he wrote down the temple ordinances performed by him and his wife.  She was two years younger than her brother, Marten, and twelve years younger than her sister, Ingrid.  She was baptized in Sweden in April of 1857, when she was 18 years old by an elder with the last name of “Clarson” but we don’t know the location.

She traveled to America alone, in 1866, the year she turned 27, without other family members, on the ship “Humbolt” and then traveled by wagon train to Utah.  Church records show that she was re-baptized on the 18^th of November 1866 in Salt Lake City (re-baptism being a common practice in Utah back then) and again in Santaquin on July 8, 1887.  About a year after her arrival in Utah she and Johan (John) were sealed by Wilford Woodruff on Nov 10, 1867 when she was 6 months pregnant with her first child.   We do not have a marriage date for them.  She raised her children and lived a quiet life, unable to read and write English.  The census records list both her and her husband as “illiterate”.  She died in Santaquin in 1894 at the age of 54, when her son John August (Jack), our ancestor, was 25 years old.