Swedish Church Jurisdictions for Family History Research

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Why Church Jurisdictions?
As you search for your Swedish ancestors, you will spend the majority of your time in the Swedish Lutheran Church Records. After all, they contain the household examination, birth, marriage, death, and moving records. But there are times when a parish record has gaps, was not well kept, or is even missing for the years you need. In situations like this, you may need to search the rest of the parish record collection (that was never microfilmed or digitized), or search records created by other church administration levels. This article will help you understand the administrative levels of the Swedish Lutheran Church. Knowing this will help you to identify the records to search.

1650's - early 1900's
The chart below represents the organizational structure of the Swedish State Church from the 1650's up to the early 1900's. See the table below the chart for English definitions and links for information about the records associated to each jurisdiction.



To print a copy of this chart with the definitions see:.