Category: Swedish Genealogy

  • Making Real Connections

    I ended this post saying, “To learn more about Anders Gustaf, his wife Elise, and their children, I’ll follow them through the Swedish records at Riksarkivet.” Those online records were great resources for facts about the children of my 4th great-grandparents, but I learned much more about my family history over…

  • One Swedish Ancestor at a Time

    Födelse- och dopböcker or birth and baptism registers begin in 1869 in the Tånnö church archives at Riksarkivet. This can be a challenging area for research because of fires that destroyed a number of church records. However, it is possible to verify the 1863 birth date of Anders Gustaf Linnell,…

  • The First Child of the First Child

    My long-running daydream about a someday trip to Scandinavia has been updated to planning a trip that will take place within the next few months. Yippee (and eek)! This means my 2022 genealogy goal of finding all the living descendants of my Swedish and Norwegian 4th great-grandparents moved up to…

  • Twins from Tånnö

    Twin (tvilling) girls were born in the Ny family of Tånnö, Jönköping, Sweden on the 8th of January 1910; Anna Gunborg Kristina and Greta Tarborg Katrina. The girls were baptized January 27th. In addition to their births, the entries in Tånnö’s Births and Baptisms Book includes information about the girls’…

  • Swedish Research on Riksarkivet

    Carl Magnus Carlson was the second of four illegitimate children born to my 2nd great-grandmother Maja Stina Carlsdotter. The page on which Carl’s birth was recorded tells more than just that; Swedish records offer a wealth of related information. The pages shown here are among the thousands of records available…

  • Research in Burned Records

    Two explanations about fires hindering research in the Swedish parishes of Tånnö, Värnamo and Voxtorp are here and here. There are workarounds of course, but pre-1860 research would consume many hours and yield few results because all three parishes belonged to the district of Östbo ~ and there was a…

  • Carl Tolf in kyrkoböcker

    Two hundred and fifty four years ago a young Swedish couple celebrated the birth of my 5th great-grandfather Carl Tolf. Carl’s birth was entered in the church record book with a quill pen – can you imagine? Unimaginable to the priest who recorded the event, I am able to admire…

  • Pearl Tolf and a marriage certificate

    Pearl May Tolf shares a New Year birthday with her uncle Peter. Pearl’s father (Peter’s brother) Frans Tolf and his wife Mathilda settled in Dixon Illinois where Pearl and five younger siblings were born. Frans and Mathilda’s oldest child was born in 1883, which means Pearl may have fibbed about…

  • Peter Tolf and a church record

    A shaking leaf on Family Tree Maker tells me there is a clue about my 2nd great-grandfather Peter August Tolf (1858-1929) in the U.S., Evangelical Covenant Church, Swedish American Church Records, 1868-1970. The record includes a history of the Evangelical Covenant Church of Batavia [Illinois], which was formerly called the…