(2021-02-01)
Summary
Three brothers are mentioned in the documents from the court at Stora Kopparberget in 1473, Olof, Markvard, and Hans. They were sons of Olof Nilsson, the earliest known ancestor of what is known as the Stjärna Kopparberg family [1].
An agnatic line to the present from son Olof and one from son Markvard have been tested with FTDNA's BigY test and analyzed at Yfull.com. They match each other as expected. From Olof Olsson there are two matching results in the Lind family with documented common ancestry in the 18th century. From Markvard there is a documented line as well as the Forsgren family from Älvkarleby whose connection to the Stjärnas family is unknown.
The star family has received the designation R-JN78 at Yfull. The line from Markvard Olsson is designated R-JN82 and the line from Olof Olsson R-JN89
Testing at Yseq.net of a distant German-born Star Match has provided clues to the prehistoric origins of the family.
Background
Olof Nilsson lived in the 15th century in Kniva east of Falun. A stained-glass window with a six-pointed star above the chancel in Vika church is linked to Olof, which is why he has been thought to belong to the noble Stjärnaätten, which has traditionally been said to have Danish origins [1].
His sons Olof, Markvard and Hans are mentioned in court documents from Kopparberget in 1473. From this it can be concluded that Olof should have been born around 1420 at the latest.
All three sons have known descendants over many generations [2]. The son Hans has been said to be the ancestor of the noble families Swedenborg and Schönström but this has recently been dismissed. [5].
The son Olof had many descendants, e.g. Hans who became the ancestor of the Rottneby line.
The son Markvard was the ancestor of Georg Stiernhielm, who was ennobled in 1631 and was assigned the estate Wassula north of Tartu in present-day Estonia. The Stiernhielm family then lived on Wassula and the last agnatic descendant, Nils von Stiernhielm, who died in 2003, was born on the estate.
DNA results
Since then, a kit from Lithuania has come to be the closest match to the prehistory of the Star Family.
Family line D (Forsgren) matches line B from Markvard Olsson, but the connection is so far unknown. B and D share only one SNP but each have many private SNPs, which is why the branching should be within a couple of hundred years after Markvard Olsson, i.e. in the 17th century at the latest.
Yseq.net testing [9] of a male of German origin (FTDNA # 417445) distant match to the Stjärnasläkten showed that three out of six tested SNPs between branch Y and Olof were positive. Since branching Y is estimated to have occurred around the year 200 and Olof was born at the beginning of the 15th century, the time for branching W can be estimated at around the year 700 (very rough estimate. The conclusion is that a distant ancestor of Olof came north from Central Europe some hundred years before Olof and that there may be some basis for the myth that Olof's ancestors were Danish.
An article about the DNA results was published in August 2017 in Släkt & Hävd. It can be downloaded here [7] .
An article was also published in Släkhistoria 2018:2. In addition to the DNA results, it also deals with the Stiernhielm family. It can be downloaded here [8].
The basic results can be found in the FTDNA project Copper Mountain [4] .
Complete pedigrees can be downloaded here [6].
Jakob Norstedt
Member of SSGG – Swedish Society for Genetic Genealogy
Email: jakob@hoijen.se
References
- Elisabet Hemström - "The progenitor of the Stjärna family - a Danish parliament?" Fahlu Genealogy Journal no. 14 / 2004:4
- Bertil Boëthius - "The Copperberg Law until the breakthrough of the 1570s" p 578-580
- Helmer Lagergren – Star line to the Lind family, notes 1936-04-18
- FTDNA Project Kopparberget https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/kopparberget
- The nobility calendar 2016
- Complete family lines
- Jakob Norstedt - "The Star Family at the Copper Mountain" Family and Claim No. 3 2017
- Jakob Norstedt - "The mists surrounding the Stjärnasläkten are dispelled with DNA" Family History No. 2 2018
- Kopparberget project at Yseq with results for sample ID 5029
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