HelPeR - BYU Idaho Special Collections and Family History

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Net Famil History
Tracing Your Swedish Ancestry
This 47 page book by James E. Erickson and Nils
William Olson contains images of sample records.
It can be downloaded in pdf format at: http://www.
swedenabroad.se/SelectImage/15063/tracingyourswedishancestry.pdf.
Rötter
www.genealogi.se/roots/
This genealogy portal for the Federation of Swedish
Genealogical Societies is also a rich source of Swedish
genealogical information.
Sweden GenWebProject
http://www.rootsweb.com/~swewgw/
There are numerous links, guides, and discussion
boards.
Counties
Sweden is divided into 21 counties (län). Counties
and their borders were established by law in 1634.
An interactive map of the counties where you put
the mouse on the county name and it highlights the
county can be found at http://www.genline.com/databasen/swedens
lan.php.
Genline’s – Sweden’s Counties Geographically
Language
The following list of Swedish terms was found at
ProGenealogists http://www.progenealogists.com/
sweden/language.htm.
• Birth—född(e)
• Illegitimate—oäkta
• Christening—döpt(e)
• Engagement/Banns—lysnings
• Marriage—vigd(e), gift(e)
• Death—dödde
• Burial—begravd(e)
• County—län
• Parish—socken, församling
• Year—år
• Month—månad
• Day—dag
• Clerical Survey—husförhörslängd
• Moving in—inflyttning
• Moving out—utflyttning
• Probate/Inventory—bouppteckning
‘’y’’ is always used as a vowel and pronounced
“I”.
‘’AA’’ and ‘’aa’’ are pronounced as in ‘’awe.’’ (Å and
å are the letters in Sweden.)
‘’Æ’’ and ‘’æ’’ are pronounced like in “air.” (Ä and
ä are the letters in Sweden; but they can be AE or ae
in plain text on the web.)
‘’Ø’’ and ‘’ø’’ are pronounced like in ‘’earl.’’ (Ö and
ö in Sweden; but OE or oe in plain text.)
‘’j’’ is pronounced just like the consonant ‘’y’’ is
said in English.
Records
Fortunately between the Church and Civil records
there should be a record of every birth, marriage, and
death. Unfortunately you need to know the county
and parish or town where an event took place and
the approximate time period in order to be able to
find it.
Civil Records
Civil Registration began in 1860. The records for
birth, marriage, and death are similar to the Church
Records.
Church Records
In 1527 the Evangelical Lutheran Church became
the official state church of Sweden. Parishes of the
church were organized throughout the country. In
most places, parish record keeping started in 1686
following an official decree issued by the King of
Sweden to do so.
Parish records are the primary research source
for the years from 1686 to 1860. They usually include
the traditional sources such as Births (Fodde) actually
Christenings, Communion (Conformation), Marriages
(Vigda), and Deaths () actually burials. They
can also include other records such as: Household
Examination, Moving In, and Moving Out records
as well as Church Accountings.
Genline has the largest collection of digitized
church records. Ancestry also has some available.
The church record descriptions listed below the Genline
samples comes from Ancestry and give a good
overview of what the various records contain. In addition
to those described below there may also be:
104 © Ev e r t o n’s Ge n e a l o g i c a l He l p e r Ja n ua ry/Fe b r u a r y 2009