Silverhill Ancestors
How to Find Them
An auction held at the town park in Silverhill, Alabama on July 30, 1909.
Charles Gustafson is the auctioneer.
Vera Johnson, daughter of the town founder, Oscar Johnson, is standing next to him.
Finding your ancestors that once lived in Silverhill, Alabama can be easy, although very time consuming. To begin, search this website by using the search window below. Doing this first, might keep you from finding the same information that has already been discovered and made available on this website.
After exhausting your search on this site, only then should you move on to other websites, beginning first with any free websites that are available.
As you are searching, keep in mind that families in Silverhill that had the same last name may not have been related to each other. Also, Europeans moving to America would change their names before or after arriving. Their names may have been Americanized to make it easier to fit in. Or an enumerator could not spell an immigrant's name correctly and did not spend the time asking.
Before 1900, Swedish surnames were mostly patronymic. These surnames were based on the father's given name and changed with each generation. The person's last name was derived from the father's given name and a suffix to identify the child's gender, -son or -dotter. For example, a man in Sweden was named Anders Persson who was the son of Per Olsson. Per Olsson was the son of Olof Mattsson, who was the son of Mattes Eriksson, who was the son of Erik Mattsson. The wife of Anders Persson was Märta Andersdotter. She was the daughter of Anders Andersson. Women in Sweden at that time kept their surnames after they were married.
Read more here on Sweden Naming Customs.
Anders Persson used this name in Sweden, then used Andrew Lyren when he lived in America. Lyren and Lyrene were use interchangeably, then after decades, just Lyrene. His wife Märta Andersdotter, became Marta Lyren in America, and then Martha Lyrene.
If a person lived in Silverhill or Baldwin County for any length of time, there might be records with that person's name at the county courthouse. Baldwin County has gone through much time, effort and expense to digitize its records, so that there is little reason to go to the courthouse to find information. Search the following sites for variations of your ancestor's name.
There are also many other websites with free information. Many have advertisements, so be careful of what you open.
The next websites charge a subscription. Some will allow a free trial membership. Some offer lower prices at various times of the year.
ArkivDigital website.
Swedish historical records based in Sweden will help you find the core family before they came to USA.
https://www.arkivdigital.net/
Ancestry website.
Census records. Family trees. Many documents. Family portraits.
https://www.ancestry.com/
Newspapers website.
With a full access membership to Ancestry you will also have a subscription to Newspapers where you can find your family mentioned in the local news. There is also a stand alone subscription without Ancestry.
https://www.newspapers.com/
If you like Facebook, then join the Silverhill History Facebook Group where you can post a question about your ancestor and connect with your long lost cousins.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/silverhill.history
After all of your research, please consider sharing it. Write a family history or story about your family for the Silverhill History website to be included on this page:
https://www.silverhillala.com/people.html
There are many styles. Some very short and others super long. Anything you contribute will be greatly appreciated. You never know who will find your information and see it as a treasure.
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