Starting when I was about 12, I’d go out to my grandpa Russ and grandma Mary’s house in Algonquin, Il every summer for a week or two. We’d visit Chicago, have picnic lunches at Lake Geneva, and go to the Founder’s Day parade. I distinctly remember my grandpa getting out this map on one of my trips, carefully unfolding it, and showing me where relatives our ours actually lived in Sweden – relatives that he’d actually visited with when he went back to visit.
Although historically it doesn’t appear that any of my direct ancestors lived in the actual city of Ljungby before coming to the US, my great-grandfather Enoch Johansson was born in Kånna and his father Johan Bengtsson lived in Dragaryd, which are both right outside the city proper.
The map is from 1965 and the level of detail is just incredible, I wish I had a map like this for all of my relatives that I’m researching. Google Maps is an incredible tool, but being able to go back in time almost 60 years has been really handy a few times.
