This little guy was Uno Hamberg, photographed on his first birthday on January 20th, 1932. The photo was dedicated to Uno’s godfather in March 1932.
Uno Hamberg was born on January 8th, 1931 (or January 20th according to the new calendar) in Tallinn, Estonia, to parents Karl Eduard Hamberg and Hilda née Ehmann. The couple had got married in 1926 and Uno was their only child.
Strangely, the birth record in the churchbook gives him the name Udo instead of Uno. Perhaps whoever filled out the churchbook had a bad hearing and spellt the name wrong.
Regarding the godfather this photo was originally gifted to, baby Uno had two: an actor (ballet dancer and choreographer Artur Koit, and a locksmith August Soo. Uno’s father Karl Eduard Hamberg was a locksmith by profession too.
I’ve mentioned this in my blogposts before that in the 1930s a law was adopted in Estonia, enabling anyone who so wished to change their German-sounding surname into a more Estonian-sounding one. Surnames had been given to Estonian families by their Baltic German masters at the beginning of the 19th century when Estonians were serfs. Some masters gave their people poetic names in Estonian, others didn’t bother at all and just gave them something random in German, and others let their people choose their own surnames. I didn’t realise how many Estonians applied for a new surname in the 1930s!
So the Hambergs were not happy with their German-sounding surname either and applied for it to be changed into Haavsalu. Since 1937, I find them in the records under this surname.
There is not that much to be found about the Haavsalus, though. They moved to Türi in Järva county, perhaps to be closer to Uno’s grandparents. I find nothing else on little Uno either. Except a mention in a newspaper Uus-Eesti of May 1940 that a 7-year-old boy with the name Uno Haavsalu had died.
I don’t know for sure if he was the same boy cause in 1940 he would have been 9 years old. But perhaps whoever recorded it for the newspaper made a typo. That would be a tragic end to our story about Uno (Hamberg) Haavsalu.
I will try to make contact with relatives of the other branches of the family and share this photo with them and find out what became of little Udo.
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