Hjalmar Alexander Klarstrom was born in March of 1873 in Alvkarleby, Sweden. He was the fourth child of Carl Magnus Klarstrom and Christina Elisabeth Bennberg.
His family moved from Alvkarleby to Lenhovda in 1885, from Lenhovda to Alem in 1889, and on to Gavle in 1890, where his father died that year.
At 20 years old, on 26 May 1893, he left Goteborg for Boston with his younger brother Robert.
His older sister, Maria, had been in Boston for ten years and was already married with a young daughter at this time. Perhaps they stayed with her family when they arrived.
I thought that he would be easy to find. Hjalmar isn’t exactly that common of a name, after all (but I was really surprised at how common of a name it is in Sweden). It means “helmet- warrior” in Old Norse, by the way.
I have no trace of him after his immigration record though.
I wonder if he may have Americanized his name. What would Hjalmar be changed to anyway? I am having a hard time making a guess since I can’t even figure out how to pronounce it. Or perhaps he went by his middle name instead. I didn’t find any trace of an Alexander Klarstrom either though.
I wonder what happened to him? His sisters were so easy to trace in the Boston area. Why did he disappear? Maybe he only used Boston as a jumping off point for further adventures. Did he head West? Did he work for a while and return to Sweden?
Perhaps I’ll never know…
