Rye, Ellen

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Swedish American GenealogistVolume 29 | Number 3 Article 59-1-2009Peter Stebbins Craig--In MemoriamEllen RyeFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsagPart of the Genealogy Commons, and the Scandinavian Studies CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center at Augustana Digital Commons. It hasbeen accepted for inclusion in Swedish American Genealogist by an authorized editor of Augustana Digital Commons. For more information, pleasecontact digitalcommons@augustana.edu.Recommended CitationRye, Ellen (2009) "Peter Stebbins Craig--In Memoriam," Swedish American Genealogist: Vol. 29 : No. 3 , Article 5.Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag/vol29/iss3/58 Swedish American Genealogist 2009:3Peter Stebbins CraigIn Memoriam – a remarkable scholar has left usBY ELLEN RYEThe world of Swedish-Americangenealogy lost one of its leadingresearchers when Peter StebbinsCraig, 81, slipped away peacefully athis Washington, D.C., home onThanksgiving Day.Peter as a child listened to hisgreat-grandmother Martha Yocumtalk about how their family’s rootswent back to Nya Sverige, the Swe-dish colony established in the Dela-ware River Valley in 1638. (Thecolony was overtaken by the Dutchin 1655, but almost all the colonistsstayed, and that is what makes thecolony’s history so interesting.)Peter tucked the stories away,never forgot them. He went on toOberlin College and to Yale LawSchool, earning a J.D. degree, andthen moved to Washington D.C.,where he worked for many years insuch positions as legal counsel for thefederal Department of Transpor-tation and for the Southern Railway.After discovering that doing gene-alogy only as a sideline when you areemployed full-time really doesn'twork well, Peter retired in 1987 atage 59 and immersed himself inresearching the Swedish roots hisgreat-grandmother had talked about,bringing to the task his strong senseof right vs. wrong – fact vs. supposi-tion, his remarkable ability to retaindetail, and a legal background whichgave him an advantage in readingand interpreting birth/marriage/death, probate, land, and courtrecords. The quest led him to studyfirst-hand the sources available inPennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey,Maryland, and in Sweden. Notsurprisingly – at least not to anygenealogist, he found himself re-searching all the colonial Swedes andFinns he kept stumbling across. Tokeep things reasonably manageable,Peter established a cut-off date, limi-ting his research to the 1638-late1700’s period.Before long, Peter was in touchPeter Stebbins Craig (1928–2009).SAG 1996:1 SAG 1999:2/39Swedish American Genealogist 2009:3with other scholars in the U.S. andSweden who had been researchingNya Sverige, and with various organ-izations and individuals concernedwith colonial history, includingespecially the Swedish Colonial So-ciety of Pennsylvania, of which hebecame a permanent council memberand official society historian andgenealogist until his death.Among those who came to knowPeter are all the many individualswho enlisted his help in establishingtheir own family connections to theSwedish colony.Among Peter’s colleagues andfriends was Nils William Olsson, thefounder of SAG, who published aseries of Peter’s articles detailing thegenealogies of numerous Nya Sverigesettlers. For many years Nils Williamincluded Peter as a member of thestaff of the annual SAG workshop inSalt Lake City.Peter’s work appeared in otherpublications as well, and he frequent-ly lectured. Among his noteworthycontributions are his many majorarticles in the Swedish Colonial So-ciety of Pennsylvania’s quarterly, TheSwedish Colonial News, each articlefocusing on just one of the earlySwedish or Finnish families andtheir descendants. His two books,The 1693 Census of the Swedes on theDelaware (1993, published by SAG)and 1671 Census of the Delaware(1999, published by the GenealogicalSociety of Pa.) are definitive worksthat should be on the bookshelf ofanyone interested in the Swedishcolony.Not to be forgotten is the GloriaDei Records Project. For more thana decade Peter has led the team inthe U.S. and Sweden which has beentranslating and compiling the lo-catable records of Gloria Dei (OldSwedes’) Church in Philadelphia,starting with the early 1640’s. Fivevolumes have been published; thereare three more to come. The teamcannot imagine what it will be liketo continue without him.Peter was a Fellow of the Ameri-can Society of Genealogists (F.A.S.G.)and a Fellow of the Genealogical So-ciety of Pennsylvania. In 2002 KingCarl XVI Gustaf of Sweden de-signated Peter as a Knight FirstClass of the Royal Order of the PolarStar (Nordstjärneorden) in recog-nition of his contributions.Just this past October Peter washonored by the Swedish Colonial So-ciety with its first (and possibly itslast) Lifetime Achievement Awardduring the Centennial celebration ofthe founding of the Society.In the words of a Society member,“Many who went before, like Aman-dus Johnson, did outstanding re-search on the Swedish colony, but itis Peter who has made it come aliveby compiling all sorts of informationwe can trust is correct. Now we knowwho the settlers were, about the livesof their children and grandchildren,Digitized old Swedish newspapersThe Swedish ColonialSociety establishes aMemorial FundThe Honorary Governor, Rev. Kim-Eric Williams writes:“A Publications and ResearchFund, in Peter's name, will be estab-lished by the Society and contri-butions in his memory may be madeout to the “Swedish Colonial Society”and marked “Craig Fund.”Donations in honor of Peter shouldbe sent to the Swedish Colonial So-ciety, Gloria Dei Church, ChristianSt. and Christopher Columbus Blvd.Philadelphia, PA  19147,  U.S.A.“May he and all the faithful de-parted through the mercy of God, restin peace.”Recently the Swedish National Li-brary (Kungliga Biblioteket) finallygave the public access to parts oftheir huge collection of old news-papers.They have been working on this fora long time, starting with the world’soldest newspaper Ordinari PostTijdender, that started publishing inthe 1640s, and still comes out everyweek as Post och Inrikes Tidningar,the official gazette of Sweden.This effort, which also read thenewspapers by computer (an OCRThere are 28 available newspapersonline now. The search is not yetperfect, but it is still useful, as youcan search on a place name or a fam-ily name. I recently found an old wed-ding announcement from 1823 for arelative in a rural parish, where Iwould never have looked otherwise.It is estimated that in due timemore than 110 million pages will bedigitized and made public. And thenwe are just waiting for the Swedish-American newspapers...Link on page 30!which creek they lived by, how muchland they had, who their neighborswere, what legal disputes they gotinto, whether they could read andwrite, how much they gave to thechurch repair fund, even the occa-sional scandal, things like that.”Peter leaves his wife Sally, his fourchildren Steve, Cary, Jenny, andKatie, four grandchildren with an-other on the way, and, among others,his older brother John and family. Wesend them our heartfelt condolences.The writer is Ellen Rye of SilverSpring, Maryland.E-mail: <ellenrye@msn.com>program), did not have any markedsuccess, and was also difficult tosearch. The new effort seems to beusing the same programs as thesuccessful Finnish National Libraryhas used, and is easy to navigate.As this is just a beta-version, thenumber of newspapers is limited, butstill very useful. You need to be ableto read Swedish to get the benefit ofit. The newspapers from the 1700sand early 1800s are printed in frak-tur type face, which might not be soeasy to read.

Peter Stebbins Craig--In Memoriam

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Peter Stebbins Craig--In Memoriam

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