SWEDISH GENEALOGY
In many ways, family history in Sweden is easy. All Swedish residents were listed in Household records. In them are usually notes about moves, births, deaths, and other events. The earliest you will find start in the 17th century. So you can learn a lot about your Swedish family. At least as long
A lot has changed since 1850 The Swedish emigration started 170 years ago. A lot has changed in the world since 1850. Sweden may be one of the countries that have changed the most. When you think about Sweden today, it’s not obvious what life was like for our ancestors. Many things are
I’m a firm believer in looking at data to understand the world. That includes the world our ancestors lived in. But some things are hard to capture in charts. Fiction can be a great tool for understanding how our Swedish ancestors lived. The books below will give you a sense of what Sweden was
In this post I’ve gathered everything you need to know about geography and place names in Sweden for your family history. Bookmark this page and come back, because this page is continously updated. Historical geographical terms Get a good start by reading about the words used. If you want
The Swedish provinces, landskap, were the main subdivision of Sweden before 1634 [1]. After that the counties were instituted. You might think of the provinces as states in the early Sweden. They had their own laws. In the south of Sweden, where the majority lives, the provinces are often an
The Swedish counties, län, were founded in 1634 [1]. They replaced the provinces, landskap, as the most important subdivision of the country. The importance of counties in Swedish genealogy In Swedish genealogy it's important to know what county your ancestor lived in. This is because an
Where you find the mantal number Have you seen that number in the margins of the Household records? It’s usually a fraction. The number may also be written above the household. Sometimes it’s followed by the word mantal. Often it also says oförmedlade, förmedlade, or for short ofm mtl, fm mtl or
The Swedish genealogy records are easily available online. You can even use some of them for free. But you have to read them in Swedish. One of the first thing you’ll notice is that the Swedish letters å, ä, and ö are commonly used. The question is, to which degree do you have to use them? Do you
Maybe you have seen the word torp, croft, in your Swedish genealogy. An ancestor may have been a crofter, torpare. Or your ancestor was a soldier and lived at a soldier’s croft, soldattorp. But what is a Swedish croft? The modern Swedish Croft is an old cottage Today the word croft makes
