Festivity with The Emigrant House Foundation in Goteborg, Sweden
 June 17-18, 2006
The festive occasion is over, we had wonderful weather, what a luck! Can
it be better
when there were a lot of activities in Goteborg this weekend: Volvo Ocean
Race final
at Lindholmen, opening of the the new tunnel "Gota tunneln" (after six years
of buildning)
and activities around the Custom buildning (Tullhuset) in the harbour.
Due to that we are geneaology researchers we will of course put our focus
on what
happened around "Tullhuset" at the dock, this weekend.
First some history about the place
"Tullhuset" was build during the years 1865-1866 by Goteborg city. In
April 1867
the house was taken in use by the custom. In the late part of 1800 the area
around
"Tullhuset" was the centre for the big emigration to the US. The Customs stopped
their
work in the house 1973. Since then the house have operated as a buildning
for
education and commerce. In 2002 Goteborgs first Casino opened "Casino
Cosmopol" on
the first floor and 2004 "The Emigrant House" was opened on the second floor, a
place
to meet and to do emigrant research.
The weekend activities
 This day the "Friends Association Gothenburg-Emigrant" had organized activities at the
dock, in
cooperation with Casino Cosmopol. A theatre group had dressed themselves up
and put on an act
to be persons from late 1800. One prisoner wandered a long the dock and the
Police were him close
on his heels. Several immigrants waited along the dock do leave for
"America".
You could also listen to different chorus who sang and told stories about
the emigration,
among others "Spårvägens male choir " appeared etc.
The Custom requested - "Don´t forget to get a departure stamp before you
leave for America".
The emigrant wave from Goteborg
What not many people knew when they passed on the dock, is that from this dock
Swedish
emigrants departed to, in first place, the US. Approx 1 million emigrants
emigrated from
Goteborg and the total from Sweden are approx 1.3 million. Other countries
that
people wanted to emigrate to was also South America, Africa and New Zealand.
Most people emigrated to the US and this day was an reminder of bygone times
and also
to spread information about what you can do in "Tullhuset" at
Goteborg dock.
On the second floor you can visit The Emigrant House. They have different kind
of
exhibitions and you also have access to computers, where you can search for
your
relativies.
Two exhibitions during this Summer:
Letters from America: An exhibition based on letters from Swedish emigrants
that was sent to relativies and friends in Sweden.
The new "American letters": Pictures and texts that illustrate our nowadays
"travellers to
America", i.e. those people who today arrive to our country. This exhibition
is based on
letters from Lebanon and Iraq, from municipality in Jönköping and also
earlier published
in the "New letters from America".
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 Some found their relativies in the US!
These days went really good and it came a whole lot of visitors to The
Emigrant House and some
actually found some of their relativies and they got some more information
about which
ship that took them to the US etc. Some of the archives you can search in here are:
Ancestry, Genline, Arkion, CD-Emigrants and also CENSUS 1890 among others.
Many people from Goteborg even didn´t know so much about the Emigrant
House, they became
positive surprised about the organisation and they should return and try to
search for their roots.
Visit Goteborg this Summer
For you that have plans to visit Goteborg this Summer, take a ride in the
new
tunnel and also bring documents of your relativies that left for America/Sweden sometime
between
the big epoch 1830-1935 and visit The Emigrant House. Who knows, next time
you may
spend your holiday with your relativies that you have found in the US or Sweden.
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More pictures from the weekend - will be opened in a new window.
Have a great Summer!
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