Introduction

My name is Leonid Linberg.  I was born in the middle of the 1940s, in the former Soviet Union.  Growing up with my father, I often heard a story that our ancestors came from Sweden.   Recently, we found documents confirming Swedish origin of our ancestors, which got under jurisdiction of Russia in the late 1700s.  According to the historical documents, Linberg was a noble family name of Swedish origin (see P.S. below) and Lutheran religion from Livonia.  With the Russian acquisition of Livona, Swedes with surname Linberg spread across Russia . This version of events is well described in E.K. von Linberg’s letter to Tambov Assembly of Nobility on August 23, 1863 : ” … I have the honor to notify that not only I as a citizen of  Livonia province , but my ancestors also were citizens of Ostsee governorates which were subjection unto Russia and therefore they were under jurisdiction of Russia.”

Our immediate knowledge of our branch of Linberg in Russia is located on the page Linberg Family Tree.   The purpose of this publication is to present whatever is known about Linberg (Russian) bloodline to anybody who might be interested, and with your help, make that information more reliable and thereby track our shared ancestry to wherever it may have originated.  In order facilitate this discussion, I have two versions of this text: in English and in Russian.  In the 1980s, my family and I immigrated to the U.S., where I live now.

P.S.  Recently, in order to put family legens on a scientific basis, I did a DNA analysis. According to DNA analysis, 55% I am a European Jew, that is Ashkenazi, which is logical, since my mother is Jewish. An additional 5%, this is either an analysis error, or added from someone. But … there is no Swedish blood at all! There are 8% of the genes of the Baltic peoples, 8% of German and 4% of West European. That is, the ancestor of the surname Linberg was not a Swede, but most likely a German who married a Baltic girl (thus the surname is preserved) and settled in Swedish Livonia.