Dr. Hakan Sundell MD, Nashville, Tennessee:

"When I emigrated [from Sweden] to the U.S. in 1970, I knew that my maternal grandfather had moved from Tillinge parish to Hubbo outside Västerås in 1897. I spent much time at Hubbo during my childhood, but there was no contact with my grandfather’s side of the family and the relatives left at Tillinge. Although I had inherited a detailed genealogical report about my grandfather’s ancestors, most of whom had lived at Tillinge, I had not studied it until the spring of 2017, when I was preparing for a visit to Sweden with my son and his family. I contacted the terrific “Tillinge Hembygds-förening” and received much valuable assistance from Marie Andersson, one of its committee members. She steered me to Hembygds föreningen’s picture gallery, where I found several great pictures of my ancestors and their farms. Marie helped me locate not only the farms and villages, where our ancestors had lived, but provided me with very interesting and sometimes detailed new information about both. Marie even guided us to our ancestral villages during our visit at Tillinge.

Marie who grew up in the parish, and still lives there, is very knowledgeable about the history and people in Tillinge. She was always friendly, cheerful, helpful and impressively responsive. Through Marie, the old ancestors and their farms “came alive again” in a vivid way and I am very grateful for that. I now think of her as one of my dear Swedish friends."