Welcome to the Alfort family archives
On these pages you will find lots of material about the descendants of Erik Alfort (1659-1730).
Since the British master shipwright Alfort emigrated to Sweden in the middle of the 17th century, the family tree after him has grown very large. This archive is about all of these people and their lives and fortunes. There are several thousand people to get acquainted with, and the work is still very much ongoing, but there is already lots of information to enjoy in the archive.
This archive is a little different from most other genealogical sites. When you do genealogical research it is tempting to write about your own ancestors, yet my specific collection of ancestors are mostly interesting to myself and my closest family, even though some of them will obviously be others’ ancestors as well. This was not the kind of site I had in mind. Instead I have chosen to base the site on the family’s founding father, the shipwright’s son Erik Alfort, and write about all his descendants. In this way the stories become interesting to a lot of people. In addition, I have chosen to focus on trying to blow some life into all the subjects by creating interesting stories about their lives, as far as this is possible by studying the sources. So often genealogical sites are about including as many names and dates as possible, even if we know next to nothing about the people behind them. In an attempt to avoid this trap I have specifically chosen not to avail myself of any of the existing tools for recording family history, but rather to create everything myself using a simple blog format. That way I force myself to write a story about every single person, and that is how history comes alive!
Only one small branch of the family still bears the name of Alfort. It is the one I belong to, and which we shall here be calling D1b: Alfort in Stockholm. However, there are other branches with the names Ahlfort, Alford (in America), Ahlforth (in America), Alforn and Ahlforn, apart from the many descendants who now have other names.
I have studied thousands of documents from all sorts of archives in order to understand what kind of people they were who planted the tree and made it blossom back in Östergötland more than three centuries ago. I was astounded and touched by their life stories and could not stop my search. Now I long to recount some of the stories to you!
Recommended reading
There are so many exciting stories to tell. While most materials in this site are provided in Swedish only, the central narrative chronicle is available in English as well. In addition, articles about people who lived in English-speaking countries are written in English only. You will find the chronicle here.
Be aware that the text may change over time as all texts are updated regularly. You can search for texts updated on a certain date, month or year by searching for the relevant part of the date, e.g. 02-2023 for posts updated during February 2023.
You will find various family trees here.
Feel free to use the feedback functionality below to ask any questions you might have concerning the texts.
Contribute to the archives
We want to share our materials with relatives in other branches! We think everyone in the family deserves to have their share of the stories. If you have something to tell or images to add to the collection, please don’t hesitate to write a comment at the bottom of any post or use the feedback functionality. I shall then contact you for further information.
Thank you so much for sharing!
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02-12-2023
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