Can the Swedish folks take over?

Question

Recently I've been working on the Swedish side of my family. I've gotten a lot of help from W/T Swedes. I'm hoping one or more of you would take over from here. What I've done is create profiles for my first-generation American families, their parents, and some of their grandparents.

But I don't think I'm qualified to carry the work further, because I don't read or write Swedish and don't have access to Swedish records.

Here's a basic tree. Beginning with my grandparents, Gus Carlson and Annie Pearson

Gus's parents were Karl Magnus Johnanson - Johansson-6272 and Johanna Beata Andreasdotter - Andreasdotter-256

Annie's parents were Anders Pehrsson - Pearson-12080 and  Johanna Lovisa Petersdotter - Petersdotter-838

I'd like to see the profiles of their ancestors done in Swedish rather than English, since they lived and died in Sweden. And, if you want to fill in missing children or go back to previous generations, that would be wonderful.

If anyone picks up this work, you have my gratitude and thanks. Tack för allt du gör för Wikitree och allt du har gjort för mig.

Answer 1

Hi Paul, just wanting to tell you that you do have access to Swedish records, they are open and free for all at

https://sok.riksarkivet.se/kyrkoarkiv

(There's a way to switch the interface to English if it is not already in English).

Still, I understand it is difficult for you or anyone else new to Swedish genealogy, just like it has been for me to work on Danish or American people, so it is good that you ask for help too.

Good luck! / Maria

Comments

I added the mother of Nilsson-8242, Annica Jönsdotter Jönsdotter-6949. I'm also uncomfortable creating profiles in Swedish and think Maria's suggestion to first create the profiles in English is great. 

I added the names of Annica's parents in the profile and some years for them. They can be found in the household records. Unfortunately, I can't find any death records before 1861 for Mjöbäck parish on Riksarkivet.  

Thank you so much, Axel. I really appreciate your contributions, 

On FamilyTreeDNA, Annika's husband is Nils Andersson -1760-1825, and Annika's father is Jons Larsson d. 1786. That's as far back as that tree goes right now.

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I made a free-standing profile for the first wife of Carl Peter Petersson, Edela Nilsdotter - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nilsdotter-7325 - to try to figure out Carl Peter.

Thank you Eva. You are a gem. 

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Hah, I have quite exhausted myself, but I finally figured out where Carl Peter was born and found a birth record for him. Made profiles for him and his father - it should be possible to make a profile for Nils Peterson's mother; she was widowed early it seems.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nilsson-11612

LOTS of wrong dates for members of this family, and they moved quite a distance, which contributed to the difficulty.

I think I told you I'm a sucker for riddles, and this was a tough one.

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I have also rummaged about with merges at FamilySearch, as you will notice. Yes, FS is constantly a mess, and I have usually, in the past, left the messes there alone, but have started piecing fragmented families together lately - I use FS mainly for emigrants, and it seems that when I work "sideways" to boost my CC7 with relatives of inlaws there are numerous emigrants. And since I have noticed that it's easier to find the sources there if they are attached to a family tree, I have been learning.

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I have mostly sourced the WikiTree profiles today from ArkivDigital, with some records (paricularly birth records) from Riksarkivet. It would just have broken my concentration too much to look up Riksarkivet counterparts for everything.

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I think I told you I'm a sucker for riddles, and this was a tough one.

You did. I am the same way. Takes me down all sorts of rabbit holes. 

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Paul, there is a great youtube video by another member on how to do Swedish research using Riksarkivet!

Check it out if you'd like.

https://youtu.be/JXCxt-8E0Ys

And on something totally different, I saw the advance directive on your profile. I think the wording was perfect. Can I use that wording on my profile?

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And, wonderful work as always, Eva!

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I saw the advance directive on your profile. I think the wording was perfect. Can I use that wording on my profile?

Of course you can copy my directive. 

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I watched the Youtube video. There is a major problem with what I saw. I saw no way to search for a name and a date range if I don't know when someone was born, was married or died.

I tried searching for my great-grandfather, Karl Maguns Johannesson, but I couldn't find him in the birth records.

Answer 2

Hi Paul. DigitalArikvet which is a subscription service for Swedish records has searchable indexes. As Maria mentioned Riksarkivet is a free service. If you know the parish they were from you can look up births/baptism, marriages, deaths, household records and more for free. 

You should consider joining the Nordic Project. Our translation team hasn't gotten up and running yet but there are always people in that group in our Discord chat that are more than helpful both in finding records, offering suggestions and translation help.

Comments

Digitalarkivet is Norway, ArkivDigital is the Swedish paysite.

Answer 3

When we work on a common world tree I like this approach on concentrating on what you can do best. Surely it is easiest if people who know Swedish and already know Swedish sources work on those profiles, etc. I would certainly prefer it if people who already are good with American, Finnish or German sources would work on my loose ends there.

But still there are so many possible profiles to work on. For me I feel like have nice distractions now and then looking at various profiles, and then I remember that I still have many of my own ancestors and other relatives (in Sweden) who I still haven't added to Wikitree, and think I should concentrate on that. Looking at a single profile someone has a problem with could be an interesting diversion, but seeing that it is a whole Swedish branch reminds me of this idea of trying to focus a bit more.

Some ideas on how to increase the chance of someone else working on your relatives:

* I see you have a DNA test. Make sure you tell your Swedish DNA matches about your Wikitree profile and that they may find clues there. If we were DNA cousins with an unknown connection that would certainly motivate me to try to get more ancestors in your tree to see if I could find the link.

* Make sure you have parish names in the birth places and as tags for the profiles, to make it easier to find them for someone in the future who is interested in for example people from Tvååker parish.

Comments

I have some Swedish relatives on FamilyTreeDNA and we have shared information about ancestors, but I never suggested that they look at W/T because I hadn't yet done the profiles.

I will share that with them now. Thanks for the suggestion.

I didn't realize you could do tags for profiles.