Sweden Genealogy

Guide to Sweden ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

Country Information
Sweden is a Scandinavian country bordering Denmark, Norway, and Finland.

Getting Started


Finding Your Ancestors' Town in Sweden

 * Genealogical records are organized by geographical locality. Civil registration (government birth, marriage, and death records) and church records (christenings/baptisms, marriages, and burials) were kept at the local level. To search these records, you must know the town where your ancestors lived.
 * If you do not know your ancestors' town, follow the advice in the Wiki article, Sweden Finding Town of Origin, to search a variety of records that might provide that information.

Sweden Clickable Map
'''Click on the map or the county list to link to detailed research instructions for each county. Click on the arrows next to County Name or County Code to order the list alphabetically.''' The map below shows county boundaries from about 1810 to 1997.

Provinces
The provinces of Sweden (called Landskap in Swedish) were historical political subdivisions based on cultural and geographical characteristics that many Swedes strongly identify with even today. Each province was unique from the others in many ways: such as spoken dialects, traditional clothing, and local social traditions. With such deep social and cultural roots associated to the provinces, it's not uncommon that immigrants referred to their origin in Sweden by the name of their province. They saw themselves as residents of a certain province rather than from Sweden. See Provinces of Sweden for a map and links.

Emigrants from large cities, however, such as Stockholm or Göteborg usually gave their origin by the name of the city.

Counties
With the Constitution of 1634, each Swedish Province turned over its civil authority to a County administration (called Län in Swedish). Through the years some counties were added and others were dissolved. The above map represents the county structure as it was in the sometime around 1950. It also matches the county structure used for the Swedish Record Collection in FamilySearch. See History of Swedish Counties and Swedish County Letter Abbreviations.

Districts

 * District List

Parishes

 * Parish List
 * Parish Pages (Alphabetical Order)
 * Maps of Parishes (Socken) in each county (Län) - in 1890, with population for each parish, great for finding nearby parishes
 * Socken Directory A Socken is an administrative unit between parishes and counties. Found mostly outside of populated areas

More Sweden Research Strategies
Research strategies give guidance on how to research or what records to search for first. Below are additional research strategy Wiki articles for Sweden.
 * Research Strategies
 * Research Tips and Strategies
 * Tips for Beginners
 * Tips for Swedish American Researchers
 * Getting Started
 * What's the next step?
 * Finding your ancestor in the records
 * Sweden "How to" Guides
 * Finding Records showing Family Structure
 * Finding Records of Moving and Migration
 * Finding Father of Illegitimate Child
 * Post-1900 Research
 * Class on Reading Scandinavian Gothic Handwritten Records.''

More Sweden Research Tools
Research tools can include resources that assist in locating correct records to search and determining the correct locality to search in. Below are links and Wiki articles to research tools in Sweden.
 * Historical Maps
 * Abbreviations in Family History Sources
 * Dictionaries
 * Feast Day Calendar (Moveable)
 * Feast Day Lists (Fixed and Moveable)
 * Nationell ArkivDatabas (NAD)
 * Nordic Given Names List
 * Household Exam Roll Headings
 * Swedish Parish Register and Household Exam Roll Headings
 * Translation Tools
 * Type the Letters Å, Ä, and Ö
 * Maps
 * MyHeritage MyHeritage puts exclusive Scandinavian records online.
 * Sites with Genealogical Vocabulary Words

FamilySearch Resources
Below are FamilySearch resources that can assist you in researching your family.
 * Facebook Communities - Facebook groups discussing genealogy research
 * Historical Records
 * Family History Center locator map

Research Tutorials

 * Help Center, Getting Started
 * Sweden: An Introduction to ArkivDigital
 * Use the Full Scope of Arkiv Digital for Swedish Genealogy
 * FamilySearch Wiki: Denmark, Norway, Sweden