Augustana Digital Commons

What can we find out about Augustana students from the 1800s? What were their careers? Where did the come from? Who were their ancestors? Who were their descendants?

Students in FYI 102 Practical Genealogy, taught by Thomas Bengtson, worked in small teams to research the family history and genealogy of selected Augustana students from the 1800s. Each team took as the subject of their research one Augustana alum. Present-day students started with some information about their alum of years past by gleaning information from the college catalogs of over a century ago. These modern students then consulted a variety of resources, including some locally available in Augustana Library Special Collections and in the Swenson Center for Swedish Immigration Research. The result are the papers presented here. Each paper is about one Augustana alum and includes a short biography, an ancestors report, a descendants report, and questions for further research.

The work here is just a beginning. Interested readers are encouraged to check on the results and pick up the trail to extend the work..