Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
TRACING YOUR (SWEDISH) ANCESTORS
Around a million people emigrated from Sweden to the USA and Canada between 1850
and 1930. Many of their 12 million descendants are now returning in search of their roots.
Luckily, detailed parish records of births, deaths and marriages have been kept since
1686 and there are landsarkivet(regional archives) around the country. The national
archive is
Riksarkivet
( 010-476 70 00;
http://sok.riksarkivet.se/svar-digitala-forskarsalen
)
; its newly
digitised system allows you to search the National Archives Database and to use SVAR,
the Digital Research Room.
Utvandrarnas Hus
(Emigrant House) in Växjö is a particularly good museum dedicated
to the mass departure.
Also worth a look is Tracing Your Swedish Ancestry,by Nils William Olsson, a free do-it-
yourself genealogical guide. Download the latest version from the New York Consulate-
General of Sweden's website:
www.swedenabroad.com
(under Visit Sweden in the menu)
or get it free from Amazon.com.
Top Five World Heritage Sites in Sweden
Hanseatic town of Visby (
Click here
)
Naval port of Karlskrona (
Click here
)
Gammelstad church village
, Luleå
Höga Kusten (
Click here
)
The First Arrivals
In the grip of the last ice age Sweden was an inhospitable place, but perhaps less so than
Siberia, where the first hunter-gathers originated 10,000 to 6000 years ago. As the ice re-
treated, tribes from central Europe migrated into the south of Sweden, and ancestors of the
Sami people hunted wild reindeer into the northern regions.
Between 1800 BC and 500 BC, Bronze Age cultures blossomed. Huge Bronze Age
burial mounds, such as Kiviksgraven in Österlen, suggest that powerful chieftains had con-
trol over spiritual and temporal matters.
