A Swedish Mystery
Genealogist and author Emma Jolly explains how she tracked down the lucky British beneficiaries to a Swedish fortune for a hit TV programme
Emma Jolly explains how she tracked down the lucky British beneficiaries to a Swedish fortune for a TV show
Each year, around 250 Swedish citizens die without anyone laying claim to their estate. Many of them will have had close relatives, but nobody knows where. This challenge is the basis of Sweden’s popular, award-winning series Arvinge okänd ( Finding an Heir), which began in 2017.
The show features presenters Kattis Ahlström and Niklas Källner searching for people with an unknown family history. I was privileged to be involved in an episode broadcast on 28 November 2019 entitled
Fyrvaktarens dotter – The Lighthouse-keeper’s Daughter. The episode centred on the search for the heirs of the daughter of a keeper at Böttö Lighthouse in Gothenburg Harbour. Clara Vilhelmina (or Wilhelmina) Carlsdotter/Jonson was born on 14 May 1875 in Böttö in the parish of Styrsö.
The surname literally means
from ‘Clara married a coal miner County Durham, Matthew Brown’
‘daughter of Carl’; the lighthousekeeper was himself named Carl Johansson. This naming tradition distinguished between sons and daughters, but the use of the father’s first name as a surname largely went out of fashion about 100 years ago. Clara’s family later changed their surname to Carlsson for both daughters and sons. They also dropped the tradition of changing surname. From then on, their surname remained Carlsson regardless of the father’s name.
The episode begins with the team visiting the island of Brännö in Gothenburg’s southern archipelago. Here are two patches of land with no owner. After the death of Clara’s mother in 1929, no heir could be found. Since then the value of the land has risen. Today it is worth around SEK 4 million (about £324,000). Relatives have been trying to establish what happened to Clara, who emigrated to England as a teenager over 100 years ago. Eva Grönstedt, whose grandfather and Clara were siblings, is shown early on in the episode in a scene in which she explains the longrunning family mystery.
Clara Brown (1875–1940)
I was involved in researching Clara’s family in England. The team already knew that she left Sweden in August 1892.
However, we discovered that Clara’s youngest sister, Ida Josefin Berhardina Johansson, also moved to England, where she married (as Ida Jonson) an Englishman named Edward Blake in Tynemouth, Northumberland, during the December quarter of 1899.
A year earlier, Clara married a coal miner from County Durham, Matthew Brown (1874–1914). The couple lived in Blyth, Northumberland, where they were recorded on the 1901 census at 73 Salisbury Street. They went on to have three children: Albert William Brown (1900–1900), Albert Matthew Brown (1903–1977) and Olga Wilhelmina Brown, later Knevett (1913–1983). On the 1911 census, the family was recorded at 1 Rosamund Place, Blyth. The search for the heir to the Swedish land therefore focused on Clara’s two surviving children, Albert Matthew and Olga.
The only heir that the television production team had already identified was Elizabeth Middleton. When Albert Matthew died in 1977, the informant on the certificate was described as his daughter Elizabeth Middleton, who was then resident overseas. It seemed from this that Elizabeth was an heir to the Swedish land.
I was asked initially to hunt for Elizabeth’s whereabouts, and my search features in the first part of the episode. However, she
proved hard to identify, so I tried a different approach.
I checked the English and Welsh Probate Calendar on ancestry. co.uk and found an entry for Clara Wilhelmina Brown, who had died on 22 January 1940. Her death certificate revealed that she died at the age of 64, in Northumberland. It was noted that she died at the address she shared with her son, AM Brown: 201 Plessey Road, Blyth. He was present when she died. The certificate described Clara as the widow of Matthew Brown, “stoneman in coal mine”.
Clara Brown’s will contained a number of interesting clues to her family situation. In the index, the name was changed on 10 September 1954 to give the alternate name of Clara Wilhelmina Heighington. I discovered that in the September quarter of 1922, after the death of Matthew Brown, Clara had married Frank Heighington in the Darlington registration district.
The will was proved on 14 June 1940 at the Registry of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. The executors were: Clara’s son, Albert Matthew Brown of 201 Plessey Road, seaman; Hannah Petterson of 7 Barnes Road, South Shields, County Durham (the wife of Alfred Petterson); and Olga Ingrid Elvira Rank of 13 Quarry Lane, South Shields (the wife of Adrian Rank). Olga’s maiden name was Sveden. She was born in South Shields to two Swedes who ran a boarding house.
The will also revealed that Clara had a grandson, Evald Brown. Her estate was left to Evald and to her son, Albert Matthew. No other children or grandchildren were mentioned.
In the episode, Niklas Källner flies to Newcastle then drives to Blyth to find out more about the area. Local historian Gordon Smith explains that Blyth would have been an attractive destination for an immigrant like Clara in 1892, because the town was beginning to experience an economic boom. The river had been widened, enlarging the Port of Blyth from where coal was shipped in increasing quantities. This, in turn, led to
greater employment opportunities in local coal mines. As a result, Norwegians and Scandinavians arrived by sea in search of work, and many decided to settle permanently. By the time of Clara’s death in 1940, the area was home to a large shipbuilding industry and six collieries. The port continued to grow and is claimed to have been the busiest port in England in 1961, shipping over six million tonnes of coal.
Albert Matthew Brown (1903–1977)
Albert Matthew was known as ‘Matty’. Like many men growing up by the coast, he developed a love of the sea and abandoned a career in mining for a life as an ordinary seaman in the Navy. I discovered that Albert had two children, Doreen Isobel Brown and Albert Matthew Brown, both of whom were now deceased.
Matty had married Doreen and Albert Matthew junior’s mother on 8 January 1927 at St Mary’s Church in Blyth. At the time, Matty was 23, and a seaman. His wife was 21-year-old Christina Macnair Spiers.
The mystery of Elizabeth Middleton is solved in the episode when Niklas visits Matty’s grave at Ropery Lane Cemetery in Chester-le-Street,
County Durham, with local historians Dorothy Hall and Alex Thompson. There he discovers that Matty was not buried with his wife, Christina, but with his common-law wife, Lily. As Dorothy says, this kind of discovery is “one of the joys of family history – you find out all sorts of things”. It is later revealed that Elizabeth was Lily’s daughter from a previous relationship, but grew up with Matty as her father.
Elizabeth’s sister, Jean, features in the episode, along with her son, Antony Atkinson. Jean reveals that she and Elizabeth were not told anything about Matty’s other family. Eva goes to visit Jean at her home. Jean had met Clara only when she was a baby, but she had inherited family photographs from her stepfather, Matty. Jean and Antony show these documents to their relative, Eva. One of the photographs appears to show Clara wearing a Salvation Army uniform.
Of Matty’s biological children, Doreen had one daughter, Linda Freeman, while his son, Albert
‘Jean had met Clara only when she was a baby’
M Brown junior, had two sons: Alan and Gary. So, on Matty’s side of the family, there are three heirs to the plots of land on Brännö: Linda Freeman, Alan Brown and Gary Brown.
Olga Wilhelmina Brown, Later Knevett (1913–1983)
Olga had one biological son, Evald Brown, later known as Eddie (1932–2012). At the time she was working as a domestic servant and living at her mother’s home of 201 Plessey Road, Blyth. No father was recorded.
After moving to London, Olga married Walter W Knevett in 1943 in Fulham. However, the marriage does not appear to have lasted very long. Olga Wilhelmina Knevett was still living in Fulham when she died, aged 70, in 1983.
By 1962, Evald/Eddie was living at 2 Grantley Cottages in Guildford, Surrey. He died in 2012. He is not believed to have married or had children.
On this line, therefore, there appear to be no heirs to the land in Sweden.
What Happened Next?
The programme has revealed three living descendants of the lighthouse-keeper’s daughter, all descended from Clara’s son Albert. Alan and Gary Brown have both been contacted, and will receive their share of the land. In fact, Alan features in the episode when he takes his newfound relative Eva out for a drink.
Unfortunately, the production team couldn’t find Linda Freeman so she could receive her inheritance, although their hunt continues. Linda CM Freeman was born in Birmingham to Doreen Isabel Brown (1927– 2006) and her husband, Frederick Freeman (1926–2001). Linda is believed to have migrated to Ireland. Any readers with a lead should email Björn Tunbäck ( bjorn.tunback@svt.se)?
If you have Swedish ancestors from within the last century, you may also be an heir to Swedish land. It is worth researching your Swedish family history in detail to cover all great uncles and aunts, as well as direct ancestors.
Besides specialist databases, there are Swedish resources on some of the main genealogy websites such as ancestry.co.uk, familysearch.org, findmypast.co.uk and myheritage.com, although you may need a worldwide subscription. Good luck, or – as they say in Sweden – lycka till.