The majority of ancestral Scandinavians shared a small number of given names and surnames. Following ancestors without becoming mixed up in the patronymic pot can be a challenge. This webinar will provide guidance for focusing on your ancestor and eliminating other possible family lines. We will answer the most common questions regarding ancestral patronymics: what are they? why are they used? and how do I follow my family and not the neighbors?

In spite of birth entries for Margareta’s five siblings in Hishult, there was no record of her birth in the parish. Tax records quickly identified the father, and revealed multiple moves within a narrow span of time; however, identification of the mother remained elusive. No witnesses to births of the children provided clues; no household examinations existed. Coupling the understanding of broad context (naming patterns, inheritance laws, the calendar shift, etc.) with mtDNA and documentary evidence, the mother was identified and the lack of a records was explained.

Mike Mansfield, Director of Content Production at MyHeritage, will teach you everything you need to know about researching your Swedish ancestors on MyHeritage — from historical context to the many valuable collections MyHeritage offers to people researching their Swedish roots.

Many Swedes who immigrated to North America (United States and Canada) joined a Swedish American Church. While most of these congregations were Lutheran, there were also Swedish Covenant, Swedish Methodist, Swedish Baptist, Swedish Mission and other free churches. Many of these churches kept detailed records as they did in Sweden. These records are a wonderful source to discover where in Sweden the person came from and in some cases tracing internal migration within North America. This presentation will highlight the history of Swedish American churches, the various denominations and what types of records were kept and where you can find these records both online and offline. We will review a few records to show the immense detail that was kept by some of these churches.

So, your research indicates that there was a Swedish soldier in your family. How do you find the records about him and his service? What will those records tell you? This session will show you the steps for locating your Swedish soldier’s military records and will include an update of the types of military records you will find in ArkivDigital, as well as military name search indexes.

Swedish records are rarely lost to fire. Churches built of brick and a lack of conflict within the country have made most records available and continuous back to the late 1600s. Elna Johansdotter married Troed Pehrsson, but not in the parish where she raised her children and died. Swedish women…

Our Scandinavian ancestors left incredible records about their lives that allow us to discover more about their (and your) Scandinavian heritage and ancestors. This session will introduce the most important Scandinavian records and provide information on where to find these records and how to use them effectively. 

Learn about all the name searchable indexes for church books, estate inventories and military records. Learn about some of the tools that make it easier to search in the tax and military records as well as updates on the new records in the online archive.

MyHeritage has partnered with archives and institutions to publish a wealth of new collections for Scandinavia and Finland. This session will describe and demonstrate these incredible resources and provide strategies for using these new collections. There has never been a better time to do Scandinavian and Finnish research.

Swedish taxation records, a head tax of individuals between the ages of 15 and 63, are some of the oldest extant records of the rural farmer. Genealogists quickly become familiar with the chronological birth/marriage/death parish records (Ministerial), the clerical surveys (Husförhör) and probate records (Bouppteckning). These documents form the bedrock…

An overview of available records in the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, & Finland) will be presented.

Is that parish of birth of your Nordic ancestor proving to be elusive? Without it, we cannot make the trip “across the pond.” Often that parish is identified in the records located in the United States and research will reveal the name or at least narrow it down. We will…