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When you first begin your Swedish genealogy research, you may be tempted to sign up for ArkivDigital, which is sort of the Swedish equivalent to Ancestry: a paid, account-based service that allows you to research your ancestors. But did you know that there is a completely free resource for Swedish genealogy, that doesn’t require you to make another account, and doesn’t cost anything?

It’s called Riksarkivet, and it is the National Archives of Sweden.

The downside of searching on Riksarkivet is that the website is not really built for searching. And by that, I mean there isn’t a great function that allows you to type in a name, a place, or some dates and then browse through the filtered results, the same way a website like Ancestry or FamilySearch would operate.

But, the great thing about Swedish genealogy is that once you find your ancestors in one record, you don’t really need a search function like that.

Swedish record keeping was so detailed and precise, that you can easily navigate through records by pulling up the record set you want and going directly to the page you need, without having to search by name. By contrast, imagine doing that with a US census - it would be impossible! You couldn’t just pull up the 1900 census and flip through the pages until you found your ancestor.

But with Swedish Household Examination Records, that is exactly what you do. The only difficult part is getting started, because you do need one record to point you in the right direction of where to look next.

You can try searching on Riksarkivet, but it will probably be fruitless. That is why I suggest…

Start on Ancestry or FamilySearch

Ancestry.com

If you’re starting genealogy research in Sweden, that probably means you’ve dabbled in U.S. genealogy research, and you probably have an account with either Ancestry or FamilySearch. Start there. If you have a tree on Ancestry, enter in all you know about your Swedish ancestor, and if you’re lucky, hints from Ancestry World Subscription might start popping up, or maybe even hints from other user’s family trees. Like all hints, these hints will need to be verified, but they might point you in the right direction of where to look next. If you don’t have an Ancestry World Subscription, these hints might not help much, but every so often Ancestry offers a free day of access for its world records - so I take advantage of that! Here is an example of a hint Ancestry shows me:

Obviously, the hint itself doesn’t tell me much, but if I was able to access that record with a World Subscription I could get the record citation and find that same record on Riksarkivet for free.

If you’re really lucky, maybe someone has already done the research and added citations, like this hint that pops up for one of my other Swedish ancestors:

That string of letters and numbers in the caption? That is the citation for the record, telling me exactly how I can find it on Riksarkivet or ArkivDigital.

FamilySearch.org

FamilySearch is also a great place to start your Swedish genealogy research, because you can access some Swedish records, provided to FamilySearch by ArkivDigital, totally free of charge. They don’t have much, but if you manage to find your family in a record on FamilySearch, you can then use that record to find more records on Riksarkivet - all for free! Here’s an example:

I did a broad search on FamilySearch for ‘Svenborg Charlotta Petersdotter’ and the first result that came up on FamilySearch is from a Swedish Household Examination record. I was able to verify that this indeed was my 2nd great grandmother Charlotte, because the dates and the names of her husband and children all matched up perfectly with my Swedish family that I had researched in the U.S.

Consider Name Changes

If you aren’t having any luck with Ancestry hints or search results on FamilySearch, consider the (very strong) possibility that the name your Swedish ancestor went by in the U.S. wasn’t their true Swedish name. This is true for both first names and surnames.

First names were often Anglicized. Consider these name changes that I’ve come across in my own family tree:

Cassie - Cajsa
August - Algoth
John - Johannes
Christina - Kristina
Charles - Karl/Carl

Surnames were often changed as well (and no - they weren’t changed at Ellis Island). My 2nd great grandfather was born as Carl Gustafson, but changed his surname to Bergren upon settling in the U.S. to reflect where he came from in Sweden - Berga. This was a common practice among Swedish immigrants and even Swedes who remained in Sweden, as patronymic surnames began to fall out of use in the late 19th century.

Another example is how my 2nd great grandmother adopted her father’s surname, Anderson. Technically, Charlotte was born with the patronymic surname of Petersdotter - she was the daughter of Peter Anderson. But upon moving to the U.S. where her father had already settled, she began providing her maiden name as Anderson to match the name her father had.

Regardless of how you get started - whether on Ancestry or FamilySearch - all you need is one record to open up a world of Swedish genealogy; once you do have that record, you can begin searching on RiksArkivet for free! Here is a short video tutorial walking you through how to begin searching on Riksarkivet:

Look for clues in U.S. Records

If you aren’t having any luck finding records of your ancestors in Sweden using the methods above, consider doubling down on your research in the U.S. Depending on when your Swedish family arrived, their passenger record might indicate where in Sweden they came from - but remember, only later passenger records had this sort of information. Similarly, you can check their naturalization records to see if they indicated a specific place in Sweden, but only more often than not these records will only say “Kingdom of Sweden” without indicating any specific places.

Check obituaries and newspapers - specifically Swedish language newspapers - to see if there is any indication of where your Swedish family originated.

There is also a fantastic record set available on Ancestry.com for those church-going Swedes in your family: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Church Records, 1781-1969 contains congregational records from over 2,000 Evangelical Lutheran churches across the U.S. I found the exact date my Swedish ancestors joined their congregation in Wisconsin, which lined up with their approximate arrival in the U.S.

The best part? These records are written similar to Swedish Household Examination Records; women’s maiden names are provided, and the records indicate exact parishes where the family originated. In the below image, Peter Anderson is noted as being from Pjätteryd, Kronoberg; Lena’s surname is her maiden, patronymic name of Svensdotter; the dates are even written as they would be in Swedish records.

So that is how to get started with your Swedish genealogy research using records on Ancestry, FamilySearch, and RiksArkivet! Let me know in the comments down below if you’ve had success jumpstarting your Swedish research, or any brick-walls you’ve hit.