By Anders and Beverly Gyllenhool

When we were kids, our dad, Hugh Gyllenhaal, gave us differing accounts of our ancestors in Sweden. Sometimes they were nobles who dined with the queen. Other times they were horse thieves who fled to the U.S. in the dead of night.

The stories kept evolving. When nephew Jake Gyllenhaal was asked about his heritage in one interview, he said the family earned its nobility after one early member made history studying butterflies.

The real story of the first Gyllenhaals touches on everything but the horse thieves.

Almost 400 years ago, Nils Gunnesson Haal (1600-1680) was ennobled by Queen Christina for bravery as a Vastgota calvary lieutenant during the 30-year war of Swedish expansion. He was awarded a coat of arms (on the left) in 1652 and given the name Gyllenhaal, blending the Swedish word for gold with the name for his farmland in the western provinces.

The royalty decree lifted the family’s fortunes in Sweden, leading descendants to high military service, the clergy, engineering, civil services and newspapering.

One was indeed a scientist, Leonard Gyllenhaal (1752-1840), an entomologist who made a name for himself collecting and studying insects. His fascination was for beetles, not butterflies. He gathered so many over his lifetime he filled 30 trunks with specimens that ended up in a Uppsala  museum.

He was also the first Gyllenhaal to take an interest in Emanuel Swedenborg, whose writings established the Swedenborgian religion that has been a part of Gyllenhaals upbrinings through the generations. Our family was raised in a branch of the Swedenborgian faith called The New Church in Bryn Athyn, Pa.

The first Gyllenhaal who came to the U.S. was Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal (1842-1905), the grandson of the entomologist. He’s our  favorite ancestor for his adventurism and later a career in newspapers that led his obituary to describe him as “the nobleman of the press.”

He traveled the world as a young seaman, then left Sweden for the U.S. when family finances floundered. He worked for a string of Swedish newspapers in Chicago and ended up chief editor of Svenska Tribunen. Journalism runs through our family up through today.

In Sweden, the Gyllenhaal name is familiar since there are scads of surnames that start with “Gyllen.’’ That’s not the case in the U.S., though. People tend to give up on pronuncation when they see the double letters. The family even made up a song to help children with the spelling. It borrows from the Irish ditty “Harrigan,’’ and goes “G.Y. Double L. E. N. H double A. L. spells Gyllenhaal! Gyllenhaal!”

The name can be a challenge, especially for those who marry into the family and must learn the art of spelling out the name. That doesn’t avoid plenty of misspellings and misfilings that cause trouble in doctor’s officers and ticket will-call booths. We used to collect the most bizarre samples, although our favorite was a simple conversion that came on a letter a few years ago. “Gyllenhool,’’ it read.