Why did I want to make this site?
Many have helped me with information and material and I like to share it with those who find it interesting.
Genealogy has given me so much in return.
Reuniting with my relatives, that have given me such a warm welcome.
My own place in history.
An unreserved love for the county of Halland, which I believe I know a little about, but have so much more yet to explore.
But nothing is greater than the admiration I feel for my ancestor’s fortunes, who’s choices and actions have made me what I am today. Fortunes I would not have known about if I hadn’t committed to genealogy.
The story of my great-great-grandmother for example, ask me and I will give you a story that might set you in a humble mode…
The article below was published in the genealogy magazine “Hallandsfarares Information” no. 149 September 2025.
Of course a nice comment about the website!
Halland’s Genealogical Society is a very active association with a solid website. There is also the “Member Portal” with incredibly valuable information! Not least the register “Halland’s population”, all of Halland’s birth, marriage and death records transcribed and searchable!
Letters from the editor:
Tips for a great website!
A well-known ship in the emigrant context is the Swedish American Line’s M/S Gripsholm.
We at the editorial office appreciate feedback from our readers and just in time for this issue to go to press, we received an interesting letter from one of our members, namely Staffan Törner in Tranemo. In the letter, he points out that through the article about “The Dangers of America” (the previous issue of our magazine) he was associated with his own research on emigrants. He writes:
“The article about the American travelers is very nice! Like most people, I have many emigrants in my family. Here I have collected some information about my emigrants, postcards and some information about the travel routes, reception stations and more.”
Link to Staffan Törner’s website: https://staffantorner.se/booklets-eng/emigrants/
and here: staffantorner.se/booklets-eng/emigrants/emigrants-routes
He further writes: “On the cover of the latest issue you can see a postcard from the series “Swedish Folklife”. The series caught my interest a few years ago and I finally found all 47 cards in the series. I made a page on my website. There you can look at all the motifs.”
Link to the postcard series:
staffantorner.se/native-district/swedish-way-of-life/
We at the editorial team have looked at Staffan Törner’s website and recommend a visit there. We found pages with lots of interesting genealogy, all with a brilliant layout and presentation!
A big THANK YOU for your reader letter Staffan!
Editorial team
/Peter Nordell
The article reproduced below was published in Hallands Nyheter on Monday, November 14, 2022.
The digital version was published on October 29, 2022 (If you have a subscription to HN, you can click on the link on the left.)
A journalist, Anna Johansson, at Hallands Nyheter contacted me a few weeks earlier. She had Googled information about Halland and then came across the website. She called and we arranged a meeting at our home. It was a nice time together with Anna. You can see the result below.
As always! You can watch this on a phone, BUT, it will be so much better on a “big” screen, laptop, at least a tablet or similar. And!, (at school I was taught that you never start a sentence with “and”), all images are “clickable”.
It is difficult to reproduce a newspaper page that extends over 1 1/2 pages in the newspaper so that it is also readable.
I therefore reproduce the images and text below. However, not as “sophisticatedly” as Anna could have done. But the content is there.
Elisabeth Bay-Jensen and Staffan Törner were just at the beginning of their relationship when the postcard journey began. Now, ten years later, they are married and have recreated 38 postcards from the past. Photo: Anna Johansson
Staffan and Elisabeth have seen Halland postcard by postcard
Halland: Staffan Törner had the idea of trying to find all the places on STF’s old postcards from Halland and take a new picture, almost 100 years later. His newly “särbo” and now wife, Elisabeth Bay Jensen, was drawn in.
Now they have recreated 38 postcards from Laholm in the south to Kungsbacka in the north.
Staffan and Elisabeth met in 2013. He lived in Helsingborg, she in Tranemo. They saw each other every other weekend in Tranemo and every other weekend in Helsingborg, and on the way home from Tranemo he would sometimes stop and look up a place that was depicted in his collection of black and white postcards from Halland that the Swedish Tourist Association printed in 1927.
– The first subject was the Sulfite Factory in Rydö. I took it on the way home to Helsingborg, he says.
STF postcards are available for the entire country. Staffan Törner, who grew up in Falkenberg, started buying postcards from Halland to illustrate his genealogy research. Then he found a box with all of STF’s postcards from Halland on an e-commerce site.
Took help from local associations
Some of the places depicted are without any exact location information. Cards such as “Landscape between Tofta and Derome” and “Plain landscape in Abild” are not entirely easy to find.
– The fun part was the difficulties we encountered. I googled around and emailed local associations, says Staffan.
Elisabeth was initially a little hesitant about the project.
– I thought: “What is he talking about”, but then I got hooked on it. It’s so funny. You can see a small tree in a picture, maybe half a meter high, and now almost 100 years later it’s still standing and is much, much taller, she says.
Staffan has posted the pictures on his website, where his genealogy research is also collected. Each picture is accompanied by a short story about how they found the place and if they experienced anything else along the way.
– Bellforsen in Ätran was exciting. We could drive a car far up the beach and I climbed down to find the right angle. Then I saw a bottle lying there on the edge that I think is from a glass factory in Småland. It was probably dropped by a power plant worker and it has been there ever since, says Staffan and takes out a seemingly undamaged bottle of thick brown glass marked “Sund 1900” at the bottom.
Tullbron and the Cold Bathhouse
Some motifs have changed over time, such as “Old Farmhouse in Himle” where the older generation in the neighborhood recognized the place and could point it out. The same goes for “Old Farmhouse in Skrea” where the local history association could help find the right person to ask.
– It’s a lot of detective work, just like with genealogy. We’ve always been well received, no one has thought it was a problem for us to come and ask questions, they’ve thought it was fun.
But there are also postcard motifs that have hardly changed at all, such as the Tullbron and the Kallbadhuset in Varberg..
– It’s fantastic that they are still there, that they look the same, says Staffan Törner.
Anna Johansson
anna.johansson@hn.se
+46 10-471 50 22
Hagbard’s gallows outside Asige is featured on one of the postcards. Here Staffan Törner poses in the same way as the 1920s model.
Photo: Swedish Tourist Association/ Elisabeth Bay-Jensen
Image extra
(For the above link to work you must have a subscription to Hallands Nyheter)
“Landscape between Tofta and Derome” is the title given by STF for this picture. This is what the landscape looks like about 90 years later. Staffan Törner and Elisabeth Bay-Jensen were not sure they had found the right place and took several pictures in the area, but once home one of them looked very similar.
Picture: Swedish Tourist Association/Staffan Törner
Here you can see the Toll Bridge before 1927 and what the Toll Bridge looks like in the 2020s
Image: Swedish Tourist Association/Staffan Törner
The old farmhouse in Himle was difficult to find for the Törner/Bay-Jensen couple.
Photo: Swedish Tourist Association/Staffan Törner
In Tranemo, the association Aktiva Kvinnor is an association with many members.
In April 2024, Elisabeth and I were invited to talk about the “STF postcards.
On the association’s website we were presented like this:
(You have to scroll down a bit.))
Monthly meeting 2024-04-10
Pictures from Halland, today and a hundred years ago
A hobby is something that can cost as much as you want, take as much time as you want and is completely unnecessary. That’s how Staffan Törner and Elisabeth Bay-Jensen began their presentation of their website “Staffan Törner’s Family Chronicle”. There, anyone interested in “the past” can really get their fill.
At the monthly meeting in April at Aktiva Kvinnor in Tranemo, Staffan and Elisabeth talked about their unusual hobby, to start from postcards that STF collected in 1927, of which 38 motifs were from Halland, look up exactly the same place and take an identical photo from the same angle almost 100 years later. On the website you can compare these two photos. It was easy for the couple to find the location of Varberg Fortress or Norreport in Halmstad, but it was really challenging detective work sometimes when the photo depicted a landscape or a house that had burned down in the meantime. They experienced many memorable meetings with different people in the process.
This was something that aroused great interest among Active Women in Tranemo, where many have connections to Halland, especially in the summer, and the website is expected to receive a lot of visitors.