"The Dick and Ann Matteson Family Home Page"

Hi! This is just a "first effort" and surely I can update this site regularily! Our Matteson surname is Swedish - even tho spelled in America as the Rhode Island Mattesons did. They also used a "military name in Sweden for a while -Nöjd- which means pleasant. Mattsson ancestors have been resarched back to the 1600s and many other marry-in names have been found and included - names such as Sundberg, Andersson, Errsson, Josephsson, etc. My great grandfather Hans Nöjd Mattesoncame with his family -wife Brita Brav(another military name!) and 6 children including my grandfather Lars Mattsson (changed to Lewis Franklin Matteson) to the Bishop Hill Colony in Henry Co. IL They found the leader (Eric Jansson)had been killed and the Colony in Chaos so they settled nearby instead. My father Maurice Jefferson Matteson and his brothers and sisters were raised in nearby Galva, Illinois. This area is then the American roots of our Mattesons and their subsequent progeny....My father married a South Carolinian - Augusta Lofton and so my roots include many Huguenot South Carolinians such as Legares and DuBoses and Bonneaus, etc. Also, Loftons and Morrisons and their predessors. New England names too, such as Whilden, Morrill, Dorrill, White and Hamlin, etc. roost on my mother's tree.My wife, Ann Swann, has one of the earliest non- New England families in the Isaac Chapline-Mary Calvert family of Virginia on the James (1622 Chapline's Choice). Her mother's Foukes of VA and Hoopers, Travers and Keenes from Maryland, etc makes for ancient Roots in the Mid-Atlantic. Her father, E.T. Swann, has many New England roots such as Haskins, Gardiner, Mowrey, Manwaring, Whipple, Maverick, etc. The genealogical process of travelling to towns and cities searching for new clues and stories and contacts is a real treat for us. We are so lucky to have the way and the time to spend on such a consuming hobby!! The Internet is a newer feasting ground and will become the halcion experience for our children's children! No more exciting, however, we choose to believe.....<dickmatt@juno.com>