Genealogical Research in Sweden

The parish of origin is the most important piece of information needed for research in many foreign countries, including Sweden. Often, to determine a locality is more difficult than adding four or five new generations once the location is known. Even though the parish is an ecclesiastical boundary, many civil records also relied upon this same jurisdiction.

If the parish is not known, research requirements will vary. There are few indexed sources allowing country-wide searches for inhabitants or surnames. Although emigration resources and a variety of records from families living in Sweden today can aid the researcher, interviews with family members and a careful search of all home sources are often the greatest help in finding clues to a more precise locality in Sweden. U.S. sources such as immigration records, naturalization, and even culturally-oriented church records will also be of tremendous value.

One of the issues that compounds Swedish immigrant research are given names. Swedish immigrants frequently changed their name upon arrival in a new country - particularly the United States. Some felt it was important to Anglicize their name, so as to fit into their new home better. Sometimes the names were just too difficult for their new neighbors and friends to manage. So, it is crucial to success in Sweden to do enough research in the immigrants new country to ascertain what his or her original Swedish name was. For female Swedish ancestors, their patronymic names would often be listed as Persdotter or Jansdotter in Sweden, but in the United States they probably would marry dropping the "dotter" or changing "dotter" to "son" (Person or Janson/Jansen). Thus, it is vital to learn the immigrant's original Swedish name in order to find them in Swedish records. So, even if you have a place of birth, you may need to undertake a great deal of U.S. research to learn your Swedish immigrant's full Swedish name before you can begin effective research in Swedish sources.

On this website, you can learn more about the basics of Swedish genealogy research including, learning about Swedish genealogy sources, various Swedish archives, naming traits and the Swedish language, place names and maps, and be introduced to some websites that are devoted to genealogy research in Sweden.

There exists a very nice 40-page reference guide on how to trace your immigrant Swedish ancestor, written by Nils William Olsson. It is available through the Consulate General of Sweden in New York. You can download the Tracing Your Swedish Ancestry booklet in pdf format.

For Further Reading

Svensk ort Forteckning. This valuable source, found in most libraries, helps define geographical entities and their jurisdictions. For example, if you know a name of a place, but cannot find that it exists as a parish, perhaps it is a farm within a parish. This place-name index can help.

Johansson, Carl-Erik. Cradled in Sweden. Revised ed. (Logan, Utah: Everton Publishers, Inc., 1995). This is considered by many to be the “bible” of Swedish research, this book describes the various record sources in more detail, discusses sources not presented here, and includes information on each of the parishes, military divisions, probate districts, naming customs and more.

Thomsen, Finn A. The Beginner’s Guide to Swedish Research (Bountiful, UT: Thomsen’s Genealogical Center, 1984.)