Indexing and cross-referencing

MyHeritage recently introduced their new SuperSearch technology and hopefully they will also sometime in the future include newspapers and other sources from Sweden. (and the whole world).

But is that a task that simply is to big to handle?

Here in Sweden, genealogy is not yet such big business as in USA and other parts of the world.
But many Swedes are interested in doing genealogical research. Our church-records are quite good (mostly) and free to use (at the archives).
Now these days most people want to have the sources available in digital media, and the most important sources are scanned and to access them you need to pay for the service. Thats OK with me, many people here battle and argument that also the digital sources should be free, claiming its a constitutional right.

Indexing are an interesting thing. Indexing takes the digital media one step further by enabling searching. And searching a database is of course a major, huge advantage compared to the search in going through the books manually.

But still, the technology of OCR (optical character recognition) and similar software are not yet able to scan/read and produce an output that is useful when it comes to old historical handwritten records. I am not even sure if this is something that is worked upon? But I hope it is.

Anyway, that means that indexing are still made by humans manually, which of course makes it time-consuming and expensive. And since not everyone that actually perform the actual indexing are experts in reading and understanding old handwritten documents, the results may be variable and unreliable in many degrees and ways.

There are alot of projects today involving indexing here in Sweden and I guess that is great. Some are very local and some are covering the whole country.

For example there are CDs available for the 1880, 1890, 1900, 1970, 1980 and 1990 census here in Sweden. These CDs are not reliable as a primary source, but great tools when it comes to locate someone that you lost track of.

There are also indexing projects ongoing for old Swedish newspapers. And there they try to use OCR-software (since printed media are more uniform and readable in general.) That works rather well, but not perfect. See an example from Swedish National Library (KB)

So when we finally have many indexed sources, the most important thing that needs to be established and developed is the possibility to do cross-referencing searches. And that I guess is exactly what MyHeritage´s SuperSearch is all about.
To be able to search for a person and that search will be able to retrieve and present all relevant information from all indexed sources, that will probably be one of the most important future feature in genealogy.

Will this ever happen? I don´t know, but it would be nice.
And if all these CDs could instead become online databases with possibilities to make needed corrections and additional input... Well then we are talking...

The future will be exciting in many ways when it comes to genealogy. DNA-testing is already here and will surely be a natural- and integrated part of traditional research.

Born in the USA

The first Swedes left for north America in early 1600s, they established a colony called "New Sweden" near the Delaware river. Its estimated that about 700-800 Swedes made the trip.
In 1655 this colony was overtaken by the Dutch, but people spoke Swedish there also more than 100 years later.

These early emigrants nobody really knows much about. Probably there are still some lineages with descendants that still are existing?

From the film "The Emigrants"

It was in mid 1800s that some Swedes again left for America. Mostly religious groups that wanted to be able to live a life they could not do here in Sweden, like "Bishop Hill".
After the civil war ended in USA and we here in Sweden struggled with several years of crop failure and bad harvests, many Swedes  started to flee the country and most did go to USA.

I truly recommend you all to see Jan Troell's 1971 film "The Emigrants"! Its a very realistic and moving story about a Swedish group of families emigrating to USA about 1850.

The film is based on the great books from our famous author Vilhelm Moberg. 



In 1865 there are about 25 000 Swedes living i USA, and 25 years later there are about 800 000!
In total about 1 300 000 Swedes left for USA this period, but nearly 20 % returned to Sweden again.

In the Swedish church records in the late 1800s and early 1900s, its not unusual to find farmers and other people that are noted to be born in USA;
In the Swedish census 1880 about 600 persons have their birthplace noted in USA or North America.
In 1890 census, the number was about 1500 and in the 1900 census it was about 3800.

Most of these was of course children to the returning emigrants.

But the majority did never return to Sweden again, and its said that in total there are more people living in USA with Swedish ancestry than the actual number of citizens living in Sweden today.
So I guess more than 10 000 000 Americans have Swedish roots!

And almost everyone here in Sweden do have many relatives in USA, some of them known, but actually most of us have lost track- and contact with our American relatives.

One of the best ways to actually find living relatives that you don´t know about is to do a genealogical DNA-test! I strongly recommend the Family Finder test from Family Tree DNA.

Use your DNA as bait!

We all have our own DNA, an unique mix that we got from our parents, that they got from their parents and so on...

This kind of DNA is called autosomal DNA and you can use it to try to find other relatives around the world.

Many Americans do have European ancestry and vice versa most Europeans do have American relatives.

In Sweden we are now starting to use DNA to find unknown, living relatives in USA. The way to do this is to use your own DNA as bait and then go fishing in the genetic pool!

And when you got someone "on the hook", a genetic match, you have a really good chance to find out in what way you are related since autosomal DNA dont go very deep. It is most useful for matching someone that have an shared ancestor within 5-6 generations.

This kind of DNA-testing is of course also useful for people that have been adopted or for other reasons dont have much knowledge about their ancestors, but if possible try to also have a traditional ancestral research ready to use when analyzing your results from the DNA-test.

A tip is to test all of your siblings to get a more powerful "bait" when fishing for relatives! You and your siblings most often get some DNA from your parents that you dont share with each other, due to random inheritance and recombination, and that is why you can get matches that your siblings dont match and vice versa. So its not a waste to let all family members take the Family Finder test, but of course its an economical matter since every test do cost money.

As an example, my mother and her brother share about 2740 cM of DNA, which indicates that they have most of their DNA shared with each other (identical twins share about 3380 cM).
Most of their matches are the same, but both my mother and her brother do have several matches that they dont share with each other. In this case, its most likely that my mothers brother got more DNA from his fathers mother and my mother got more from her fathers father.
I know this since I could confirm and assign a match to my mother ( a third cousin once removed) that was linked on her fathers fathers lineage. My uncle however did not have this match at all present in his DNA.

So please join the party, start using your DNA as a bait to find other relatives.  I can assure you that this is fun, interesting and very exciting!

Jussi Björling

One of Sweden´s most known and famous persons is Jussi Björling (Bjorling or Bjoerling often used outside Sweden). He was an opera-singer (tenor) with a unique and great voice.

His real name was Johan Jonatan and Jussi just a nickname that he got from his grandmother when he was a child.






Jussi (upper right) with his father and brothers.

Jussi was born 1911 in Dalarna and died 1960 in Stockholm. He was a singer already when he was 4 years old, and as a child he toured and performed all over USA together with his brothers and their father; David Björling. They performed under the name "The Bjoerling Male Quartet".

Later the brothers also became quite known and successful as singers, but Jussi became the real superstar and is still, more than 50 years after his death, considered as one of the best opera-singers in the world.



When I started out with genealogy in 1982 and was 16 years old, I had of course heard of Jussi Björling, even if I actually did not listen much to opera or that kind of music.

I guess the most famous song here in Sweden that we associate to Jussi is "Till havs" (here is a youtube video when he sings this in Swedish television 1953.)

After some years of genealogical research I found out that I actually was related to Jussi Björling. And as most genealogists I find it very exciting when finding a relative that are known since there are usually lots of pictures and documentation available.

My mother and Jussi Björling are 6th cousins and our common ancestor was the shoemaker Johan Parman (1673-1744).and his wife Katarina Waller (1700-1773).

Their daughters Anna and Maria both came to Voxna parish in Hälsingland and from them our lineage looks like this;

Jussí´s line;
Anna Parman (1725-1788) - Lars Norberg (1751-1827) - Margareta Norberg (1784-1864) - Lars Björn (1809-1896) - Lars Johan Björling (1842-1909) - Karl David Björling (1873-1926) - Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling (1911-1960)

My mother Agneta´s line;
Maria Parman (1730-1808) - Johannes Larsson (1762-?) - Stina Johansdotter (1803-1887) - Per Trygg (184-1916) - Sara Kristina Trygg (1874-1925) - Edit Svedlund (1915-2005) - Agneta (1948-)

The surname Björling came out of the surname Björn (Bear in Swedish) and as stories tell the name Björn was in this case worn by an extremely strong man and that this physical strength really was passed down his lineage. And Jussi was known also for his great physical strength, winning many matches of arm-wrestling...

Jussi Björling did not get old, only 49 years, but he most likely experienced more during this time than most of the rest of us ever will do. He had a serious problem with alcohol, but despite that he managed to perform and have a rather long career and made an impact in most countries in the world, and still does!

If you ever visit Sweden and Borlänge, please check out the "Jussi Björling Museum" they have there.

Chasing ghosts...

There are those who think that genealogy is a rather pointless pastime, and that instead of "chasing the past", one should devote energy to our present and future life.

But as a genealogist, I must of course defend genealogy as a concept and I know that for many people it is an important activity that serves many more functions than just to pass time.

As a professional genealogist I do genealogical research for others who do not have the time, desire, stamina or skills to do genealogy on their own, but still are interested in their origin and family history.

We Swedes are otherwise quite intent on that genealogy is a chore you "do yourself", like most Swedes also think about our gardens.

But we have previously done most things "ourselves" and today we do not think it´s weird to have the baker bake the bread for us, buy a ready-made dress, or hire a carpenter to build our new patio. We could of course do these things ourselves, but our priority is simply set to other things, or we don´t have the time, energy or knowledge.

Genealogical research is not even a bit exciting, interesting or fun for everyone, but surprisingly many people are nonetheless interested in knowing more about their ancestry, their roots and their origin.

I often come in contact with people that have "given up" their genealogical research when they realized that the time, stamina or the will to preserver was simply not enough. Just as I know there are lots of bread baking machines, sewing machines, and expensive carpentry equipment and tools collecting dust, hidden away in our homes. They reminds us of broken illusions and cracked ambitions, but we, again, did not have the time, energy or knowledge to pursue them.

The interest in our long-dead relatives are sometimes regarded as bordering on the morbid, and certainly we must not forget to put the most energy on our close- and loved ones who are still alive. But our ancestors - all of them equally important, also deserves to be remembered and live on in our minds and memories.
Without them we would not exist and there are many thousands of years of "work" behind each one of us living today.

So it´s not about "chasing ghosts", but rather to honor life.
And I truly believe that you can do that with genealogy, whether you do it yourself, or hire someone to help.

Princess Estelle

As you all know Swedish Princess Estelle was born in February 23, 2012.


Prince Daniel, Crown Princess Victoria and Princess Estelle.
Copyright Kungahuset.se

Estelle Silvia Ewa Mary, Princess of Sweden, Duchess of Östergötland, born February 23, 2012 as the first child of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel.

Nobility and royalty is not so often related to us "ordinary" people, they tend to marry within their own circles.
But now, when we suddenly got a "man of the people" (Daniel Westling) in the royal family, there are suddenly lots of “common Swedes” who suddenly are related with the future sovereign Estelle.

And since many Americans have Swedish heritage, probably lots of people in USA are now also related with Estelle.

I am actually myself related to Prince Daniel and Princess Estelle. Not closely related but in several ways.
Our closest shared ancestor was Per Johansson Wall (also named Borg during a period of time) and his wife Kerstin Nilsdotter.

Per Wall is noted born 1730 in Ockelbo parish, he died 1806 in Hanebo parish. Kerstin was born 1726 in Arbrå parish and also died 1806 in Hanebo.

Via these ancestors there are two connections, since Daniels great grandmother, Brita Westling (1868-1965), her parents was actually 1st cousins with each other.

Daniels grandfather took the surname Westling from his wife when they got married and that was not common practice these days..

Besides Per Wall (military officer), I and Estelle also have other shared ancestors in the couple Erik Nilsson (1641-1719) and his wife Anna Svensdotter (1643-1713) who lived in Segersta parish.

Probably there are even more shared relations between us that I still have not documented (in Bollnäs).

Prince Daniel and Princess Estelle
Copyright Kungahuset.se

My grandmother Edit was 5^th cousin with Estelle´s grandfather Olle.

And my mother Agneta is 6^th cousin with Prince Daniel.

So me and Princess Estelle are 7^th cousins.

But I really don’t know if relationship with someone is to brag about, regardless if its a Prince, future Queen or a world famous Opera singer... But we genealogists do like to find relatives of all kinds.

And if we step further back in time, we end up being related to everyone.

I have noticed an increased interest from customers in USA to find out if they are related to the new princess Estelle, and depending from where in Sweden your ancestors came, the possibility is there!

Genealogy mistakes

Some people say Swedish genealogy is very easy to do, but thats not quite true...

Actually its rather tricky sometimes, mostly because of the fact that we in Sweden rarely used family surnames. So one great challenge is to avoid mixing people up when they all have almost the same names.

From my last post about Swedish surnames and family names. I have got some questions and reactions from people wanting me to share some more examples.

I often notice that americans trying to find their Swedish roots end up wrong sooner or later and one reason is that they may think that people named Andersson, Johansson or Olsson are actually carrying family surnames and that they may think they are related to all other Andersson, Johansson and Olsson...
(actually there are also Swedes making this error...)

I have studied hundreds of public and private familytrees that contains these type of mistakes.

Here is an example of how this sometimes tends to occur;

Lets start with a man named Andrew Olson that is supposed to be borned in the year 1870 in the parish Brösarp in Sweden. As a bonus in this example we know that his name before leaving Sweden was actually Anders Olsson.

We check the birth records for Brösarp 1870 and find that there are actually six Anders born there this year.

May 9: Anders : fathers name; Ola Persson
May 30: Anders : fathers name; Per Persson
June 20: Anders: fathers name; Per Olsson
July 26: Anders: fathers name; John Larsson
Oct 16: Anders: fathers name; Nils Brock
Oct 21: Anders: fathers name; Nils Andersson

Now guess which of the Anders most people pick out as to be "their" Anders Olsson here?

Yeah, most common mistake is to pick Anders born in June 20 because his fathers surname is what we are looking for; Olsson.

The correct Anders is the first one. The fathers name is Ola Persson and his children will have the name Olsson based on the fathers first name Ola.

Anders that was born in june 20 will be named Anders Persson, as his fathers first name is Per.

So thats a typical example how easy things can go wrong from the start.

From about early 1900 we changed and started to use our current surnames as normal family names.