Understand Sweden to know your story
Read, understand, and explore your Swedish roots like a native
Are you making your way through the archaic Swedish of 19th century records?
Perhaps you are a bit tripped up by the multiple and shifting surnames—or unsure how to locate your ancestors’ homes in Sweden.
Or maybe you’re looking to answer a specific question, but not finding a solution.
Access is not understanding
While Swedish records are available online, your roots can be difficult to uncover. Records appear to point in one direction, but the trail turns out to be a dead end.
Find a Swede was created by professional Swedish genealogist Annika Höstmad to guide you to the answers to your mysteries and an understanding of your origins that is perhaps deeper than you even thought possible.
Swedish records are amazingly rich, if you just know how to read them.
Start learning
Exploring Swedish Roots is a newsletter that takes you through Swedish particularities, methods, and resources. You’ll learn:
- What you can find in the Household Examination Records, husförhörslängder
- How to adapt your methodology to the Swedish naming patterns
- The best sources for Swedish genealogy and the best sites for accessing them
- The history of how Swedish villages were formed
- The religious reformation and land reforms that shaped daily life as well as the economy in Sweden
Finally, a newsletter that understands why you’re googling husförhörslängder at midnight.
You won’t find a Facebook group for your Swedish Johansson family. In fact, your ancestor’s surname might not help you much at all.
Most Swedes before the 20th century went by a patronymic. It was a last name based on the first name of the father followed by the word for son or daughter. The son of Johan had the last name Johan’s son—Johansson. The female version was Johan’s daughter—Johansdotter.
This meant each family had different last names between the father, the mother, and their children.
From Exploring Swedish Roots
Swedish genealogy advice, expert research tips, and my best resources to trace your ancestors.
Your research. Your pace.
Shortcut to Sweden
Shortcut to Sweden is an ecosystem that helps you read, understand, and explore your Swedish ancestry as if you were born and raised in Sweden. Each piece is as extensive as it needs to be to move you forward and no more.
LEARN MORE
READ
Shortcut to Sweden: Illustrated Genealogy Glossary
A curated glossary of genealogy-related terms with script font examples covering the mid-1600s to the late 1800s.
START READING
UNDERSTAND
Shortcut to Sweden: Foundations
A framework that answers common questions when researching your ancestry in Sweden and helps plan and structure the research.
START LEARNING
EXPLORE
Shortcut to Sweden: Navigator
Speed up your research and expand into specialized genealogy themes using the tools I’ve built for client work over the years.
START NAVIGATING
Swedish genealogy research
My services give you access to my expertise and judgement for key moments in your Swedish family history.
The landscapes your ancestors knew are still there for you to discover.
MEET ANNIKA
From Sweden to the world
I’m Annika Höstmad, a professional Swedish genealogist based in Gothenburg, where 80% of Swedish migrants once boarded their ships. My office is on Postgatan, the street leading to the custom house and their last steps on Swedish soil.
Whether you’ve just discovered your Swedish ancestry or you’re stuck on a stubborn family mystery, you deserve to know the truth about your history.
I believe learning about your roots can bring meaning to the present. That’s why my work is focused on depth rather than creating a quick family tree, because that’s how you both get further back and gain a better understanding of what actually happened.
You’ll read this newsletter 7 times out of 10.