Your Guide to Researching Swedish Ancestors

Sweden is a Scandinavian country, with 24 counties. The landsarkivet (regional archives) maintains local records of genealogical value. National records are held in two repositories: The Riksarkivet (National Archives) and Krigarkivet (Military Archives). The state church is the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Clemensson & Andersson. Your Swedi sh Roots: A Step by Step Guide. ( read a review -- and a second review)

Consulate General of Sweden offers a free 40 page handbook by H. Olsson. Tracing Your Swedish Ancestry.

Johansson. Cradled in Sweden. 1977, rev. 1995 (now back in print)

Minnesota Genealogical Society. Swedish Genealogical Resources.

Olson. Tracing Your Swedish Ancestry. 1987

Swedish Genealogical Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1993

Thomsen. The Beginner's Guide to Swedish Genealogical Resarch. 1984

Thomsen. Genealogical Guidebook and Atlas of Sweden

Articles:

Shea. "Ten things to Look for in Swedish Records" in Genealogical Helper September/October 2005

Periodicals:

The Swedish American Genealogist.

SARA Journal

See also:

University of Minnesota: Sources for Swedish and Swedish American Genealogy

Swedish Genealogical Word List at familysearch.org

Swedish Research Outline at familysearch.org

Other FHL aids for Swedish reserch (scroll down to find SWEDEN)

Map of Sweden's counties in 1998 and prior to 1998.

Historical Atlas of Sweden

Explore the wealth of available information at World GenWeb: Sweden (Sweden Genealogical Gate)-- however, you'll want to be sure your pop up blocker is on. You can subscribe to receive notifications of updates.

Shea. Beginning Swedish Genealogy. (.pdf)

Visit the websites of these libraries, archives and societies:

If your ancestors immigrated from Sweden to North America, you will want to visit the website of the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center., which is located at Augustana College in Illinois.

The American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis maintains an Archive and Library for members, but it is closed to researchers until March 1, 2008.

SVAR: A Department within the National Archives of Sweden has a home page in English . From here you can search images and databases of vital, census, tax and church records.

The Research Archives of the University of Umea offers databases online, including the 1890 census. Some pages are in English, but the listing of databases is in Swedish. You can try using a web page translator -- just paste the url in the approriate box and click Swedish to English from the drop down. It helps a little.

Swedish Roots is the Federation of Swedish Genealogical Society's English page. (In Swedish)

Han's Hogman's Genealogy & History site has a lot of informtion on Swedish Research (click the "in English please" link)

Census:

The 1890 census is available on line and searchable, but you must first select the county to search.

Church records:

A valuable subscription database is$ Genline, $ 8an archive of Swedish Church Records (site can be viewed in English or Swedish, i.e. Svenska -- and be sure to check the list of available parish records before you subscribe! Scroll to the bottom to view the varied subscription offers) . See: Genline: Gary Shea takes a test drive... for an overview. You might find this quick overview on the nature and value of Swedish church records helpful.

Military:

Search the Swedish Soldier's Register to help locate soldiers' records. Here is a more complete explanation of it. See also this thorough explanation of the Allotment System used by the Swedish military.

"Your Swedish Roots" adapted from chapter 1 of the book of the same title.

DIS Computer Genealogy Society of Sweden contains a database of Swedes who lived before 1913. You can search for free, but must subscribe to get information. While you are at the site, check out their newsletter and other information.

Dear Myrtle provides a quick overview: Swedish Genealogical Research.

Swedish Research: a Case Study.

Swedish English Dictionary: Genealogy Terms-- notice at the top of the list are links to other useful Swedish/English terms.

Translate English to Swedish/Swedish to English.

Search or place queries on these forums:

Rootsweb message board for Sweden. Don't overlook the board for the county (or historical county) of interest.

More Links:

The Swedish Genealogical Society of Minnesota Swedish Genealogical Resources on the Internet.

Cyndi's List: Sweden

GenealogyLinks.net: Sweden