MY FALK FAMILY

From Sweden to Australia

Welcome!       

My name is John Edward Falk and I am an Australian descendant of a Swedish 'Falk' family.  As a young lad, I had heard many stories about my Swedish great-grandfather, Hans Edward Falk. The tales included: He was a ship’s carpenter; he almost lost his life at sea; he jumped ship in Australia and walked barefoot from Newcastle, New South Wales to Warwick in Queensland.  To my young self, this was the stuff of legend, but to older generations of my family, the early life of Hans Falk in Sweden had long remained a mystery.

I never knew Great-grandfather Hans; he died three years before I was born, but those stories that I heard about him remained with me throughout my life.  In fact, he became an ever-more intriguing figure.  My wife Julie,  our family genealogist, attempted for years to trace Hans in his homeland but without success. One of his grandsons even visited Sweden to try to discover more…again without success. 

Good fortune eventually came our way, though.  A generous Swedish genealogist had been researching Hans Falk and his family from a different angle and he shared some vital information with us on the birth of Hans, his parents etc. This provided us with so much more insight into our Swedish family and our surname. This information is shared on the 'Family In Sweden' page (see tabs at top).  Thanks also to Gunilla and Pia in Sweden for additional information on Hans Falk's siblings: Johan Petter Andreasson and Johanna Maja Andreasdotter!

All of us have a story to tell and the purpose of this website is to share some information adapted from the two Falk family books compiled by my wife:


This website will also include some old family photos from the Falk family collection. The website will be focused on my own direct line and include some stories of my own life for my descendants in the future.  At some point later  in their lives, when they begin thinking of preserving their own life stories for posterity, I hope they will find this website useful.

My Y-DNA haplogroup and that of my 2nd cousin 1x removed in Sweden is I-FGC21552.   I have also tested autosomal DNA at Family Tree DNA, My Heritage, 23andMe and Ancestry.