Sätila Parish Villages and Geography

Magda's family came from many different farms and villages throughout Sätila parish. After finding a website containing images of historical maps of the area from as early as 1694, it's been fun to locate the places in which they lived with as much accuracy as I can. Many of them are shown on the map below.


I'll be referring back to this map as I discuss more details about individual families. 

To get a better idea as to the size of the area, from Bösgården near the top of the parish to Årenäs at the bottom is about 8 1/4 miles (as the crow flies). You can see the village of Sätila located at the tip of Lake Lygnern with the church just up the hill from Sätila Sand. Even those farms and villages on the outskirts of the parish were less that 5 miles from Sätila kyrka, and many were much, much closer.

Magda's father's family came from several small villages throughout the parish until the last few generations ended up in a small area between Lake Lygnern and a smaller lake labeled Ramsjön which is shown on the enlarged map below. (If you're at all interested in following the geography through upcoming posts, you'll want to remember the name of the lake, "Ramsjön", as well as its unique shape.) Also notice how close they were to the waterfall, Ramhultafallet.

 
Very early recorded generations of Magda's mother's family were listed in a few different villages in the parish, but ultimately they seemed to have made the village of Rya their home for multiple generations. Let me clarify a little - this applies to her maternal grandmother's side of the family. Magda's maternal grandfather did not have a family history in Sätila as he was born in a nearby parish, but when he came to Sätila as a single man, he, too, settled in Rya and stayed there throughout the remainder of his life.



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