Part 3: The Swedes in Texas

I googled the surname Vennerberg and found an interesting index to books about Swedes in America. According to this index, a book called Svenskarne i Texas i Ord och Bild, 1838-1918 contains information about several Vennerbergs who appear to be connected to the Iowa Carlsons and Vennerbergs. The index has a good amount of detail and provides many dates and locations. Here is an extract of the Vennerberg data:

Must get a look at this book! I checked Worldcat, and saw that several distant libraries, including the University of Texas at San Antonio, own a 1994 translation this book. If I can't get the actual book via interlibrary loan, perhaps one of them will be willing to photocopy the pages we need to see. Or, even better, maybe when Laurie is in Texas she can find it at the local library.

United States Census Searches

Next came fruitful searches of the U.S. Census. I found listings for 1900, 1910, and 1920. These results are listed below in the order I located them. Even though some of the results were far off from "Vennerberg," I looked at the all of the Wharton, Texas listings.

1910 Census

A search on the spelling Vannerberg yielded the following results in the 1910 U.S. Census:

View John and Christina Vennerberg in the 1910 Census:

1900 Census

Next a search for Joh* Ven*g produced these results in the 1900 U.S. Census:

The second to last entry, for John Venesaug and Crester in Wharton,Texas turned out to be them, even though the names looked very wrong, and the approximate birth year was indexed incorrectly (the actual census form says 1837).

View John and Christina Vennerberg in the 1900 Census:

1920 Census

Searching on Joh* Van*g provided success in the 1920 Census:

View John and Christina Vennerberg in the 1920 Census: