Tracing your Scandinavian heritage

BY WILLIAM B. FAGERSTROM

BEGINNINGS
Start by documenting names, dates, and stories about family members. Let family know your interest and interview older family members. Church and civil records will always be there, but personal memories and records will be lost with time unless documented.

Family Stories When conducting an oral interview: make interviewee comfortable, don’t correct them, let them take conversation in a direction they want. If you touch on a sensitive issue, don’t pry. Ask specific questions. Where was ____ born? Ask broad questions. What was it like going to school and going to church? Avoid asking “tell me all you know about our family history” as this can be overwhelming and hard for them to know where to start. Remember tape recorders and camcorders may be threatening, particularly on a first interview. Limit interview to about 60 minutes. Document stories-who said what and when.

Important Records The family bible (which may have notes about births, marriages and deaths), certificates of birth or baptism, marriage, and death certificates, naturalization papers, newspaper clippings, photo albums, movies, immigration, old letters from/to Scandinavian country, family tree, etc are all sources of information. Preserving Records: store them in a safety deposit box or closet not in a basement or attic as heat, moisture and bugs/rodents can destroy records. Acid in some papers and tape can destroy records. Use acid free tape and use acid free paper to separate records. Avoid paper clips (rust) and most plastics on photos.

Family Surname-Patronymics Until about 1900 most Scandinavians did not have a surname. They used a patronymic system where Johan’s children Andre and Birgitta would be called Andre Johansson(sen) and Birgitta Johansdotter(datter).

Document research so you and others can later follow what was done. Use family group sheets and pedigree charts. Identify the source on the back of Xerox copies. Keep a research log and a correspondence log.

Join genealogy and history clubs in localities where your ancestors lived. Join clubs of your ethnic interest.

Facts Remember family stories, census, church records and other records may have inaccuracies. Family stories are clues, but should be checked since errors can enter over time and the passing from one generation to another. Collect information and evaluate it later. The family name may have been spelled differently in the past. Becareful, the same surname is not necessarily an ancestor, prove the connection.

Share by writing a family history, even a partial history, or post your family tree and surnames on the Internet.

RESEARCH PLAN
Census records, deeds, and church records contain different information about our ancestors. Therefore, research is planned based on what we know about our family (names, dates, and locations of events), what we want to know and some idea of what records may have the information we need. Are we more interested in one family branch than another branch? Do we want to put together a family tree of names and dates for birth, marriage and death, or are we interested in writing a family history? Generally it is best to start from what we know and work towards the unknown, this usually means working from more recent toward older records.

UNITED STATES RECORDS
Federal Census is taken every 10 years and kept private for 72 years, so 1930 is the latest census available to us. The 1790-1840 censuses named only the head of household and listed the number of people in age groupings. The 1850-70 censuses lists all household names with ages. The 1880 added birthplace of person and parent, partially indexed by state. 1890 census was destroyed by fire. 1900-30 added year of immigration & naturalization, indexed by state. All are viewable as microfilm at the Archives in Wash. DC, in regional archives in Boston, NYC, Philadelphia and 8 other locations and at Mormon churches [details below]. A number of censuses are fully indexed and available on-line at www.familysearch.com. Some states had censuses, mainly in 1800’s, typically 5 years between Federal censuses, i.e. 1845, 1855 etc.

Vital Records (birth, marriage, death) may list parents, etc.; begun in the mid to late 1800’s, $5-20/copy; available by state or county.

Deeds for property; easy to use as alphabetically indexed by year, one book for buyer (grantee) and another book for seller (grantor); county record.

Probate Records often name family members, their relationship, location and marriages; list of personal property is often descriptive.

Immigration-Naturalization papers mainly show country not parish. The location of these records is tricky. Ship passenger lists are at the Federal archives and are indexed by ship and arrival date.

Church A lot of genealogy information (birth, marriage, death) is in church records, but the type and location of the records is highly variable.

Country Histories & City Directories are in most local libraries as well as periodicals published by genealogy and history societies.

Social Security Death Index (SSDI) lists 85 million people, their death date and residence and is available on the Internet.

Indexes are very helpful in doing genealogy research. For example, to see if an ancestor is mentioned in a county history book first check the index.

SCANDINAVIAN RECORDS
Scandinavian records are similar to USA records. The Scandinavian church records are usually more complete covering most people, with more info and extending back further. The Scandinavian censuses are often not as complete or might not exist.

Going to Scandinavia to search for family records is fun and meeting with family members, even several generations removed, is very enjoyable as the Scandinavians are generally very hospitable and interested in relatives and family history. Church records and in Norway the farm records (bygdebøker) are the most helpful so the key is knowing our ancestor’s parish, home town or farm. Hopefully this is family knowledge, check with family members. Unfortunately most immigration records give the country, but not the parish.

Emigration records are more helpful. There is a CD with emigration information on 1.3 million Swedes. For help on correspondence to Scandinavia see Section 5-Resources. Knowing your Scandinavian language is very helpful but not required as many church and census records are in an order (form). However, court records do require knowledge of the language. There are many translation lists for key words and phrases. The handwriting in older records is more of a problem than not knowing the language. There are guides to older handwriting, which is gothic. Remember the Swedish letters å ä ö and the Norwegian letters æ ø å come after Z. There are maps with a scale of 50,000 to 1 (approx. 1”=1 mile) which show buildings, churches, place names of farms and villages.

Scandinavian Records Available In The United States The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also called LDS or Mormon Church) share their extensive books, pamphlets, microfilms and microfiche of genealogy records. These are available at the main LDS library in Salt Lake City. There are over 1500 Family History Centers (FHC) at local LDS churches where one can view microfilms and microfiches loaned from the Salt Lake library. Each FHC has a catalog of the Salt Lake Library.

Most Scandinavian Church records until 1890 are available on microfilm. These include birth, marriage and death records. The Swedish Church took clerical surveys (census) that are very helpful as they are continuous, not every 10 years as in the US. These clerical surveys are available on microfiche at the FHC of LDS and online at www.genline.com for a subscription. Genline.com is also available at all Family History Centers and many public libraries.

SOME RESOURCES
Books-Guides

Most public libraries have a genealogy or history section with books on how to do genealogy, genealogy data, and local history. LDS Research Guides for Norway, Sweden, Denmark, for each of the 50 states in the US and for Canada, British Isles.

Computers are very helpful for genealogy record keeping, for searching resources stored on other computers (see “Computer-Internet” below), for finding and communicating via email with other genealogists, and for writing/publishing a family history.

Computer-Internet Internet websites are helpful as they have:
1) genealogy guides for region/ethnic/topic
2) regional and migration histories,
3) names being researched with info on how to contact the
   researcher,
4) databases-birth, marriage, census, tax rolls, family trees, etc.,
5) a query system for posting questions,
6) maps
7) links to related websites.

The top award winning genealogy web site is: http://www.cyndislist.com. It has no information itself but has links to over 260,000 websites that are cleverly arranged into 180+ categories of genealogy topics and geographical regions. The Scandinavian/Nordic category has many links: Scan./Nordic-65, Denmark-212, Finland-145, Iceland-84, Norway-329, and Sweden-275.
Thus one can quickly go to:

1) guides on How To Find Your Ancestors In ____,
2) articles on Scandinavian names, naming traditions; Scan.-English    dictionaries and Scandinavian genealogy word lists,
3) 1801 Norwegian census,
4) maps,
5) lists of Archives & Museums,
6) mailing lists where people share information, ask questions and
   get answers with others interested in Scandinavian/Nordic/Viking-
   Danish/Finnish/Icelandic/Norwegian/Swedish genealogy
   and history.
A common disappointment has been the lack of online databases of vital records, church records, census, migration records, etc. Things have improved. LDS website http://www.familysearch.org has genealogy guides, the US Federal censuses for 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900 and 1920 (partial), some state censuses, some UK censuses, their International Genealogical Index (IGI) with over 600 million births, christenings and marriages which are easily searched using the computer or microfiche and databases of family trees (Ancestral File & Pedigree Resource) listing over 40 million people. Family trees are very helpful because they link people to their parents and children. Warning, family tree databases may have incorrect information as anyone can contribute their family tree and there is no check on its accuracy. The IGI listings are by surname and locality. The Internet has surname databases and surname websites. The latter are devoted to a specific family or surname. The largest surname database is at www.rootsweb.com. It is searchable list or registry of more than 1 million surnames submitted by more than 220,000 genealogists. Each surname listing has locality(ies) and dates with information on how to contact the person who submitted the surname. The RootsWeb site also has family tree database, guides (general genealogy guides and Scandinavian guide www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide/lesson23.htm), the SSDI and more. www.usgenweb.com has a volunteer run website for each county and state with lists (& links) of local resources (libraries, societies, court houses, people), information about the area including history, a surname list, a query system and maybe databases of cemeteries, etc. The World GenWeb similarly divides the world into regions, countries, and provinces or counties. Ancestry.com is a subscription service database with lots of helpful information is available for free in many libraries. Google and other search engines are a very handy way of finding genealogy information on the web.

ORGANIZATIONS

American Swedish Institute, 2600 Park Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55407 (612)871-4907 museum, bookstore www.americanswedishinst.org

Danish Archives North East, Edison, NJ rootsweb.ancestry.com/~njdane"

Danish Immigrant Museum, Elk Horn, IA dkmuseum.org

Delaware Genealogical Society http://delgensoc.org

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania www.hsp.org

Glouceter County Historical Society, 17 Hunter Street, Woodbury, NJ 08096 - Research request form if you cannot visit the library http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~njgchs/PDF/Research.pdf

Lutheran Church Archives: Evangelical www.elca.org/who-we-are/History/ELCA-Archives.aspx

Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod chi.lcms.org

Minnesota Genealogy Society, 5768 Olson Mem. Hwy. Golden Valley, MN 55422 (has Scandinavian branch societies) mngs.org

Danish-American Genealogy Society, booklet “Searching for your Danish Ancestors” danishgenealogy.org

Finnish Genealogy Group, minnesotafinnish.org

Norwegian-American Genealogy Association, quarterly newsletter norwegianamerican.org

Salem County, New Jersey GenWeb www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~njsalem/genealogy.html

Settlements along the Delaware River rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mnsgsm

Swedish Genealogy Society, quarterly meetings, research guides rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mnsgsm

National Genealogy Society (NGS), 3108 Columbia Pike Suite 300, Arlington, VA 22204 (703)525-0052 ngsgenealogy.org

Norwegian-American Bydelagenes Fellesraad, North American organizations of descendants from particular areas in Norway. fellesraad.com

Norwegian American Genealogy Center & Naeseth Library, 415 W. Main St., Madison, WI 53703 (608)255-2224 nagcnl.org

Swedish Genealogy Club of American Swedish Historical Museum, 1900 Pattison Ave., Phil., PA 19145 (215)389-1776 americanswedish.org

Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, Augustana College, Rock Island, IL 61201 (309)794-7204 records including American Swedish church, a quarterly The American Swedish Genealogist augustana.edu/swenson/

Professional Genealogists can be hired to do your family search or to help you solve a tough research problem. I’m not a professional, but am willing to try to answer your questions or help you get in touch with a source.

William B. Fagerstrom
2918 Jaffe Rd. Wilmington, DE 19808
fagerstrom@me.udel.edu
www.me.udel.edu/~fagerstr/genealogy.htm

 		 

 

 
Some Delaware Valley residents can trace their ancestory back to the very first European settlers who arrived on the Kalmar Nyckel and her sister ships.
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