Swedish Genealogical Word List

The Swedish Genealogical Word List shows Swedish words and their English translations for many words that are found in documents used to research Swedish ancestors. If the word you are looking for is not on this list, please consult a Swedish-English dictionary such as the Swedish Historical Dictionary Database, SHDD. (Or see "Additional Resources" below.)

Swedish is a Germanic language like Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic. A major spelling and grammar reform was introduced in Sweden in 1917. The sections of Language Characteristics, Key Words, and Additional Resources below are designed to help you find the words you need.

Word List
Click on the little box next to the word Swedish or English to sort the list by that language. Or, hold down the "ctrl" and "f" keys on your keyboard to search for a specific word. If you are looking for an occupation see Sweden Occupations.

To get help with common abbreviations in Swedish records see: Sweden Abbreviations in Family History Sources.

The entire Swedish to English word list is available in a PDF file [[Media:Swedish to English Word List from the FamilySearch Wiki May 2011.pdf|Swedish to English Word List from the FamilySearch Wiki May 2011]].

Language Characteristics
Swedish is spoken in Sweden and parts of Finland. The Swedish language was used in official records of Finland until the end of the 1800s.

Variant Forms of Words
In Swedish, as in English, the forms of some words will vary according to how they are used in a sentence. Who—whose—whom or marry—marries— married are examples of words in English with variant forms. The endings of a word in a document may differ from those in this list. Also, vowels sometimes have diacritical marks indicating a variant spelling of a Swedish word (for example the conjugation of a verb.) Note the following examples:

Alphabetical Order
Swedish has three additional letters not found in the English alphabet: Å (å), Ä (ä), and Ö (ö). Alphabetically, these letters come after Z. The letter Å (å) was always used in Swedish as a letter of its own (unlike the Aa in Danish and Norwegian). Before 2006 the letter W was considered a variation of V and not a letter. Swedish dictionaries, indexes, the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog, and this word list use the following alphabetical order (after 2006):

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö

Spelling
Spelling rules were not standardized in earlier centuries. The following spelling variations are common.

Examples:

Key Words
To find and use specific types of Swedish records, you will need to know some key words in Swedish. This section lists key genealogical terms in English and the Swedish words with the same or similar meanings.

For example, in the first column you will find the English word marriage. In the second column you will find Swedish words with meanings such as marry, marriage, wedding, wedlock, unite, legitimate, joined,and other words used in Swedish records to indicate marriage.

Numbers
Translations for numbers are found on the English to Swedish Numbers in Word Form Wiki page.

Additional Resources
This word list includes only words most commonly found in genealogical sources. For further help, use a Swedish-English dictionary. Several Swedish-English dictionaries are available at the Family History Library. These are in the Scandinavian collection. Their call numbers begin with 439.7321.

The following dictionaries are also available:


 * Widegren, Gustaf, Svenskt och engelskt lexicon, efter kongl. Secreteraren Sahlstedts Svenska ordbok, Stockholm 1788, available through 1788 Swedish English Dictionary
 * Wahrman, Sven Niclas. Svenskt och Tyskt - Franskt - Engelskt Hand-lexicon, Örebro 1814, available through the Swedish Historical Dictionary Database, SHDD
 * Ernolv, Carl. Svensk-Engelsk Ordbok [Swedish-English Dictionary]. Stockholm: Svenska Bokförlaget Norstedts, 1947..
 * Björkman, C.G. Svensk-Englesk Ordbok [Swedish- English Dictionary]. Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt, 1889. . Swedish spelling was reformed in 1906. Since this dictionary was written in 1889, it shows words as they were spelled before 1906.
 * For death records: See a list of causes of death in the Demographic Database of Southern Sweden (DDSS).
 * For various online Swedish-related dictionaries, see Projekt Runeberg.

Additional dictionaries are listed in the Subject Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under or in the Place Search under.