SOME SWEDISH GENEALOGY RESOURCES
1. Swedish-American Genealogist is a quarterly journal devoted to Swedish American biography, genealogy, and personal history published by the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center to Augustana College. Augustana College also offers extensive on-line Swedish genealogical research assistance.
2. VASA’s Archives is a good source of leads for Swedish immigration information.
3. Sweden’s National Archives ( Riksarkivet ) – Your link to your history! In Swedish and English (note: the website comes uip in Swedish but the “language” link in the upper right corner enables you to change to English).
4. Sweden’s Royal Palace Archives is an interesting resource to explore.
5. The Facebook site Swedish American Genealogy Group is a useful resource on social media but you have to have a Facebook account to view it as they do not have a public facing page..
6. Locally in northern California, there is the VASA Golden Gate District #12 Swedish Genealogy Club at https://www.vasagoldengate.com/GenealogyClub/ And don’t forget many local lodge members are into genealogical research and are happy to assist you in translating documents, deciphering the tangles of family surnames and other genealogical challenges.
7. Finding your Swedish Roots – where to start with Släktforskarförbundet, Sweden’s Genealogical Association.
8. Roots in Sweden? A Swedish fee-for-services site.
9. The Swedish Historical Society of Rockford has several collections of genealogical interest.
10. Another site of possible interest to followers of the royal family is an interactive family tree of Swedish Royal Family available from Expedia.
11. If you want to learn more about scholarly genealogical research, check out the American Society of Genealogists,founded in 1940, which is an independent honorary society of the leading published scholars in the field of American genealogy.
12. The popular printed Library Research Outlines (aka Research Guide or Guidelines) published by the Family History Library in Salt Lake City were taken out of print in 2009. However all of the information in these Outlines has been transferred to the corresponding locality pages in the Research Wiki, and is being developed further by dedicated volunteers all over the world. You will find the Research Wiki genealogy home page at: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Research_Outlines and more specific Swedish focus at https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Sweden_Genealogy.
13. Roots Tech is a family history and technology conference and trade show held annually in Salt Lake City, Utah. You will find a plethora of on-line resources, videos, workshops and the like on their conference page at: https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/home.
14. Another recent addition to on-line research resources focused Swedish genealogical information is ArkivDigital a popular among researchers in Sweden as well as those with Swedish heritage around the world. The service has all you need: sources, indexes and a family tree.
15. A resource available to people in the greater Sacramento area is the Elk Grove Family History Center at the Elk Grove Stakehouse of the Church of the Latter-day Saints. The Center not only has general genealogy resources, it also has a couple of in-house consultants who are very knowledgeable about Swedish genealogy.
16. You can also peruse the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center located at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.
17. The Geneanet website provides a plethora of information across the world and provides occasional focused summaries in their online newsletter for different countries. A recent summary of Swedish resources was provided in an August 24, 2023 posting.
18. If you are uncertain on how to start researching your Swedish ancestry The Local published an excellent tutorial in their online May 16th, 2024 edition titled How to research your Swedish ancestry that you may find very helpful.
Still, sometimes having a print copy of resource documents at your fingertips while working on the computer is helpful so you can print out the Swedish outline PDF (202 pages). Or you can save the PDF to your computer and create a shortcut so you can open the document in a separate window. This is a very helpful document because in addition to the usual technical information and guidance it also has several appendices with different examples of Swedish handwriting, historical maps, Gothic alphabet, etc.
If you want paper resources, check out Carl-Erik Johansson’s “Cradled in Sweden” and “Your Swedish Roots” by Clemensson and Andersson are very helpful genelogcal resources and the English version a few years ago of “Folk Costumes of Sweden” by Inga Arno¨-Berg is a fascinating look at Swedish costumes once you have some idea where your ancestors resided in Sweden.
And, of course, there are other broader scope resources like Ancestry.com and Genealogy.com (see differences).
Last updated 05/20/2024
