SMC Professor Finds Roots and the American Dream
When SMC journalism professor Jeanne Rollberg traveled to Graz, Austria on a UALR-sponsored faculty-exchange trip in May, she financed a personal side trip to Sweden and Denmark to follow up on family research undertaken through the wide availability of public documents on the World Wide Web.
Though “public documents” had always been of interest to her through the classes she taught, helping hundreds of aspiring journalists learn where and how to seek information, Rollberg said she had never considered the deeper cultural meaning of public documents until she began doing research on a virtually unknown Swedish branch of her family tree.
While in Ystad, in southern Sweden, a reporter wrote a feature on her quest for her roots, a search she found strikingly similar to her ancestors exploration for the new life they sought in America 150 years ago.
Through public documents and available historic information, Rollberg said her family came alive for her and other family members. She encourages anyone who has never looked at their family’s history from the viewpoint of the first immigrants to begin that search now.
“Find the hidden stories that shaped the American Dream when 60 million people took an unprecedented leap of faith and came to America,” urged Rollberg. “Such a vicarious journey can also give a family enhanced understanding of today’s immigration issues because many of the controversies related to immigration today are the same ones chronicled in newspapers of a bygone era.”
While the Swedish newspaper found a story focusing on Rollberg’s visit and search, she has started contributing articles to “Sweden & America,” a joint quarterly publication of The Swedish American Center in Karlstad, Sweden, and the Swedish Council of America that is published in both Swedish and English (view the article “Finding Roots - Making Friends“).