Researching Scandinavian Ancestors? It's Amazing What You Can Learn

Looking for your Norwegian ancestors? Mike Mansfield, Director of Content Production at MyHeritage, will show you how to find them on MyHeritage. He'll explore the unique and valuable Norwegian collections MyHeritage has to offer and give you tips and advice on using them to research your Norwegian heritage.

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 genealogical records from Denmark have been digitized, fully indexed, and published online. With unparalleled censuses and robust church vital records available, learning about your Danish ancestors has never been easier. In this session we will jump into these Danish records at MyHeritage, the Danish National Archives, and the Danish National Library and discuss strategies and practices that promote successful research and discoveries.

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.

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

If you're researching your roots in Norway, these resources are a fantastic place to start: National Archives of Norway, National Library of Norway, MyHeritage and Genealogy Society of Norway. In this session, Vidar Øverlie will help you explore these essential resources.

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.

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.