Sweden Immigrants

The group of Swedish people came to America mainly for job opportunities. They started to travel here in the 1840s when a group o pioneers started a migration tradition between certain areas in the United States. This caused what they call, colonies, to form in settlements including: western Illinois, Iowa, central Texas, southern Minnesota, and western Wisconsin. The population overgrowth in Sweden was a major reason for the people of Sweden to leave their home country. Religion beliefs and political reasons also played a role for families to travel to America. My family came here looking for just simply more opportunities. When the family arrived in New York they were ready to find a home after a dreadful trip on their ship. It was my great-great grandparents, Peter and Marie(7 moths pregnant), who traveled with their four children: Anna, Martha, and Hulda to America. Hulda died when they landed but suffered most of the voyage from measles. The Sundvall Family name is a confusing story. My great-grandfather's grandpa's family all came to America together but Lars stayed in Sweden because he was in the military. In the military Lars changed his name from Lars Larson to Lars Sundvall because he was told to change his name because there were already too many Larsons in the military. He chose this name because it was a large city in Sweden. Meanwhile his family in America had all remained Larsons. After Lars got married and had eight children and stayed settled in Sweden. Peter was the oldest, my great-great grandfather, and he was the one who traveled here with my family.
After they arrived in the US the family had heard that many people were settling in western Illinois and Peter's chances of success were high with him being a carpenter. So they headed west, and purchased a farm just south of Orion, Illinois. They lived in a three-bedroom house. No running water and there eventually were ten kids living in the house. Farming was a major attraction to new