Anders Gustaf Anderson, from Åland to the Darling Downs

My great grandfather, Anders Gustaf Anderson, was born on the 17th December 1837, to Anders Andreasson Rosenberg and Christina, ‘Hanna’ Johansdotter Sundberg. 

Anders grew up in Mariehamn, in the Kökar archipelago, part of the Åland Islands (6,700 large and 20,000 small islands). In 1809 the Åland Islands were ceded by Sweden to Russia, along with Finland, under the Treaty of Fredrikshamn. However, in 1920 the League of Nations degreed it an autonomous and demilitarised region of Finland.  Although part of Finland, the official language  is Swedish. 

'Hanna's house where Anders was born, is now a museum. (Photo courtesy of Tessie Anderson).

St Anne's church  Kökar where Anders was baptised, sits on the site of St Anne’s 15th century Franciscan monastery. It is believed that there was an even older church there before the Franciscans. (https://www.kyrkor.ax/churches/kokar-church/ ).

Anders had two younger sisters, Anna Emelina Andersdotter (1841-1906) and Amanda Christina Rosenberg (1844-), and a younger half brother Esaias Anselm Johansson Fagerston  (1852-). When Anders was eight  and his sisters four and one, their father died. Their mother remarried a few years later and Esaias was born when Anders was 14 years old. 

As a young man Anders travelled on the La Rochelle from Hamburg, Germany, to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, arriving on the 5th August 1863. 

La Rochelle (StateLibQld 1 103302 La Rochelle (ship).jpg – Wikimedia commons)

The excerpt below, from the La Rochelle passenger manifest (Queensland Government Archives: Digital Image ID 8311) shows him as a passenger.

From Brisbane, Anders travelled to Laidley in the Darling Downs and began work as a labourer. 

In 1872 Anders married my great grandmother Anna Josefine Gulbrandsdatter Sorensen, a recent immigrant from Norway. Together they had seven children:

Franz William (1873)

Anna Christina (1875-1877)

Anna Christina (1877-1960)

Anders Gustaf  (1880-1956)

Martin (1883-1963)

Sophia Josephine (1886-1963) 

Lilley (1888-1890).

My grandmother was their third child, Anna Christina, named for her older sister who had died at just 23 months of age, three months before my grandmother was born.