Michelle Hale <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
"I would love to visit the area someday, though my relatives come from different parts of Scandinavia, so I wouldn't know where to start."

Start in Gothenburg/Göteborg! It's right in the middle between the three Scandinavian capitals, and just happens to be my hometown ;-)  It's a lovely place - probably the most beautifully situated heavy industrial and wharf city in the world, home of among others the ballbearing, the Volvo and the man who invented the Coke-bottle. (Just slightly ironic, it's a great place to live).

"I've always been told that my maiden name (Lundgren) is Swedish, but my great-great grandpa was a Danish orphan, so who knows what he really was."

"Ja, for sure, Lundgren is Sveedisch."  ;-)  It means "grove-bough", and all those corny/poetic (pick your choice) nature-names are Swedish in origin (though they do occasionally occur in Norway).
Erik Fridén


"Mensch, werde wesentlich! Denn wenn die Welt vergeht,
so fällt der Zufall weg; das Wesen, das besteht.
Viel haben macht nicht reich. Der ist ein reicher Mann,
der alles was er hat, ohn' Leid verlieren kann.
Freund, so du etwas bist, so bleib doch ja nicht stehn:
Man muß aus einem Lichte fort ins and're gehn."
        Angelus Silesius
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