The Widell family tree on this site is rooted on Don's wife, Helene Widell. The paternal Widell line stretches back to Nils Widelius (1709-1781) and his family from Marstrand in V�stra G�taland County, Sweden. Other lines include the Falkenberg, Drakenberg, Bjurling, and Ferguson families.
A page with a full family tree of all known relatives in graphical form is available by clicking here. In that diagram details about deceased relatives are shown. The name and details about living persons other than Helene are replaced with the word "living". If anyone in the diagram is shown as living when deceased or shown as deceased while still alive, please contact Don to correct this mistake.
Information to produce even a short biography (more than just birth, marriage, and death data) of many individuals and couples is not currently available.
Two interesting historical documents are, however, available. Jean Drakenberg married Mabel Ferguson in Jesmond, Northumberland, England in 1897. They soon thereafter were living in Sweden. An image of the marriage certificate of Mabel's parents, John Ferguson and Annie Dees, has been located and can be viewed here.
Jean and Mabel's son Hans Drakenberg would be involved in the sport of fencing his entire life and represented Sweden in the 1936 (nazi) Olympic Games in Berlin. In the first round there were eight pools of competitors. Only the top five in each pool in each round advanced to the next round. Hans placed second in pool 1. The second round had four pools of competitors. Hans placed first in pool 2 and advanced to the semi-final round. In the semi-final round, pool 2, there was a four way tie for the fifth place, the last place that qualified for the final round. This caused an extra round to be played that same day. Hans won this extra playoff round and advanced to the final round.
In the final round Hans placed fifth and did not receive a medal. It is myconjecture that the extra round of competition the previous day contributed to his performance which was poorer than in previous rounds. The full results of the epee competition in 1936 is documented in Wikipedia. A printed copy of that webpage can be viewed here.
If anyone viewing this website finds any errors or private information about the Widell or related families please contact Don via email and a correction will be made. If anyone has any additional information or supporting documents, please contact Don so that it can be incorporated into this site.
