FamilySearch Indexing: Determine Swedish Parish Name and Place Names

Back to FamilySearch Indexing: Swedish Church Records up to 1860►

Place names are very important to Swedish family history research. While indexing some place names will be difficult to decipher. You can type in the place name the best you can, but your accuracy will increase if compare the place name to another source.

To help with this problem you can:

1. Use a Look up list to search for a matching place name (seeLookup List under Indexing Instructions.)

2. Figure out what parish you are working in to use sources like:

- The parish page in the FamilySearch Wiki for the parish you are working in.

- Search the household examination place index for the parish you are working in.

- Use another Swedish gazetteer to help figure out the place name.

3. Go to the FamilySearch Forums for Sweden and ask for some help to figure out a place name.

Remember: Although you may use one of these sources above to figure out a place name, you should type the place name into the indexing tool exactly as it appears in the record. Do not modernize the spelling.

Determine the Name of the Parish based on the Film Number (DGS number)
To figure out what parish the image you are indexing came from, do the following:

1. Find the DGS (Digital Genealogical Society) number for the batch you are indexing. This is found accross the top of the screen while you are indexing. For example:

FamilySearch Indexing - Sverige, Södermanland - Kyrkoböcker till 1860 [Del 2]/004148088[174]

In this case the numbrs 004148088 is the DGS number.

2. Click here to see where the film number (DGS) is located on the indexing start page or the indexing screen.

3. Click on the county that you are working in to open a file that shows the film number (DGS number) by the name of the parish. Once the file is open click on Ctrl + F to open a search field. Type the DGS number in the search field and click on the "find next" icon pointing right, or click on the "drop down" icon pointing down and click on "Find Next in Current PDF". After you click the program will move your screen to the number and highlight the number in blue. Next to the number you will see the name of the parish.


 * Jönköping


 * Kalmar


 * Södermanland


 * Uppsala


 * Örebro

4. Knowing the parish can help narrow down the list of farm names that may have been recorded. Click here to see a document that lists the farms within each parish.