Nordic Countries

Countries
On these pages Nordic countries, or Norden (the North), refers to Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden (including the autonomous region of Åland), as well as the Faroe Islands and Greenland, both of which are politically part of Denmark. These places have also inaccurately been referred to as the Scandinavian countries. In most usage the term Scandinavia refers only to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; while geographically it refers to the two countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula, Norway and Sweden.

Background
These countries have several things in common that the family history researcher should know.
 * In 1397 Sweden, Denmark and Norway were united in the Kalmar Union while retaining their individual sovereignty. The Kalmar Union ended in 1523 when Sweden seceded from the Union upon the election of King Gustav Vasa.
 * Naming systems among the general populace were patronymic. That is, children were given their father's given name along with a suffix identifying gender as their surname. For more information see the Personal Names article for a specific country.
 * The laws which governed the countries and created record used by genealogists were very similar. These laws were Sweden's Instrument of Government 1634, Christian V’s Danish Law of 1683, and Christian V’s Norwegian Law of 1687.
 * The state-sponsored Evangelical Lutheran Church was was the official recorder of vital records (births, marriages, deaths). These records were later expanded to include confirmations, lists of persons moving in or out of a parish. Sweden also kept annual examination of the religiosity of parishioners (household examination records) from about the mid 1700s.
 * The term Scandinavian came into wide use in the 1830s with the cultural and linguistic Scandinavianism movement.
 * The term Nordic began to enter into use in the early 20th century, and into wider use with the establishment of the Nordic Council in 1952.