New Sweden/Swedish Naming Practices

Origin of the Brimberry Surname and Matthias Brymberry's Swedish Ancestors
Mattias Brymberry's father Christiern Brunberg was born in the province or län of Halland, Sweden, and came to America about 1711. He appears to have been educated and may have been a member of a similiarly named shipping and trading family in Varberg on the west coast of Sweden south of Gothenburg. The Brunsberg family of Varberg is known to have moved there in the 1500s from Lübeck during the height of the Hanseatic League which saw trade and people moving freely across modern borders around the Baltic Sea which during the 1600s became a "Swedish lake". The mercantile league began in 1241 following a mutual protection treaty between Lübeck and Hamburg. Located on the Trave River, near the Baltic Sea, Lübeck played a leading role throughout the course of the medieval Haseatic League which at its pinnacle had over 100 member cities.

The origins in Luebeck of the educated, upper-class Brun family which built an estate high on a hill or berg (called Brunsberg) overlooking Varberg comports with the fact that, although we usually identify the Vikings with modern Denmark, Sweden and Norway, the entire Baltic region was populated a thousand years ago by Norsemen or Vikings. Moreover, an individual surnamed Brown recently matched the Brimberry Y-DNA group. The possibility that his Brown's orginated in Germany suggests that he may be descended from the Brun family of Lübeck.

In Swedish, the "g" at the end of Gothenburg and Christiern's surname both have a "y" sound. Hence various changes occurred in spelling over the next 125 years. Interestingly, the "y" and "g" were both used interchangeably in the spelling of his surname in Christiern Brunberg's will in 1752.

Variations in the spelling of the surname include BRUNBERG, BRUNSBERG, BRYNBERG, BRINBERG, BRINBERY, BRINBERREY, BRANBERRY, BRUMBERRY, BROOMBERRY, BRYMBERRY. Given the multitude of spellings by third parties, it is miraculous that the seven branches of the BRIMBERRY family all adopted the latter spelling. Where applicably, the spelling found in a particular document is used to describe the event, e.g., Matthias' surname was recorded at Branberry when he married Mary Andersson in 1766, hence that spelling is used in conjunction with that event. In short, readers should be aware of variant spellings.