Norrköping

NOT pronounced Nor-k-uh-ping. Actual pronounciation: [nawr-chœ-ping] (I think nor-shuh-ping is pretty close).

What? You’ve never heard of Norrköping? Well, I don’t blame you. The only reason I’ve heard of it is that my mom’s grandmother and great-grandmother emigrated from there.

My sister visited Sweden a few years ago (her husband served an LDS mission in Sweden) and they went to Norrköping and had a great experience (family-history wise), so I decided I should go, too. However, it wasn’t until the night I arrived in Stockholm that I thought of looking for the location where my great-great-grandfather was buried. Poor planning on my part (or lack of planning) but seriously, how hard could it be to find it? I knew what parish he belonged to (East Eneby, Hedvigs Parish) – surely they had a cemetery where parish members were buried, right? Sadly, no.

Norrköping is about a 90-minute train ride out of Stockholm. Just a few blocks from the train station I found Hedvigs Kyrka (which was pretty good since I had no idea where I was going), but as I said, there was no nearby cemetery. That’s OK, I would just ask where they would have buried people in 1862. I arrived at the door just as they were closing for the day. I stated my case and everyone at the church was extremely nice and tried to help me. They gave me a map of the city, and pointed out a cemetery that would have graves from the 1800’s. So, I set out on my quest. Since it was Sunday, no one was working at the cemetery for me to ask whether or not I was in the right place. Again, I figured it would be OK, I would just walk around and see what I could find – shouldn’t take long. I started with a lot of energy, but after a couple of hours (and a lot of snow), I decided that I was out of luck. That said, I did have a nice time and was able to take some great pictures.

Hedwig's Kyrka

St. Matthew's

river in Norrköping