Pia Norrgård, Österbottningen, Norden 2 Sep 2004.
Translated by June Pelo.
For over 60 years Kia Schley’s father Karl-Erik Inberg searched for relatives in the United States. When he died Jorma Inberg carried on his search.
“One Christmas I got a card from Elliot Inberg in the US saying he and his brother Darlow found me via the Internet”, said Kia, who lives in Kronoby. Darlow said he had heard about relatives in Finland 20 years ago and he became interested. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.
When computers entered the picture, it became easier to do genealogy research around the world. Three years ago, he began to search for his Inberg relatives. They found Kia through her homepage and made contact. This summer Darlow and his wife Del visited Kia and her husband Bernd Schley in Kronoby for the first time.
Darlow said, “I am retired from the U.S. Army but during active duty I was stationed in Germany and Del and I visited Scandinavia several times.” They visited Stockholm in 1959 and 1972 and looked in the telephone directory for the Inberg name but didn’t find it. They were in Helsingfors in 1986 and found several Inberg names. Del said she asked Darlow to phone some of them, but he wouldn’t. She thinks he’s sorry he didn’t call.
The Inberg family goes back to the 1600s. Erik Inberg (1664-1744) moved with his family to Finland in 1722 from Hudiksvall in Sweden. They came from Sund village in Idenor parish. Erik bought the entire area of Vittisbofjärd (Ahlainen in Finnish), north of Björneborg in Satakunda.
Kia said that Erik was a captain and got permission from the king to transport goods to Middle Europe and probably was rich. Kia is 9 generations from Erik Inberg and Darlow is 8 generations. It was Johan Gustav Inberg (1827-1894) who emigrated to South Dakota in 1870. His father’s father had moved back to Sweden and Johan Gustav’s son Joseph was a year old when the family moved to the US.
Joseph had 9 children with his wife Ingrid, and their oldest son William is Darlow’s father. Johan Gustav and his wife Christine Ulrika (nee Wernbom from Björneborg) were with them and founded the city of Dalesburg in South Dakota. There were many people who emigrated from Dalarna in Sweden and settled down there, so that could have had an influence on the name. Darlow’s father William and his wife Pearl (nee Sweeden) founded Hub City in 1924 where he started an industrial complex.
Work on the Inberg family continues and new people are being discovered. “We are in Finland now and in the fall, Kia will visit us in Texas,” said Del who thinks one can learn so much through genealogy.
