Your Ancestor’s Swedish Marriage Records and How to Find Them

Hello everyone! How’s it going this week? Did you have any new genealogy discoveries this week? Has anyone found any Scandinavian marriage records this week that they want to share? Because that’s what we’re going to be finishing the month with is Scandinavian marriage records, specifically Swedish marriage records.  I had someone ask about how do you find Swedish marriage records and I realized that I hadn’t done an article about this topic yet.  So let’s get started!

What to know about Swedish Marriage Records

1. They generally started recording marriage records in 1686, though there are earlier ones found in certain parishes.

2. There can be a separate engagement book called a “lysning” book and a marriage book called a “vigsel” book. Some parishes did not separate the two events, but combined them in one book.

3. You can find a marriage date in the Household Examinations book.  Then you can search the actual marriage books for the event.

4. There was no standard organization in the marriage books. So take your time analyzing how the minister organized his entries for that parish.

5. A typical marriage entry should include the full names of bride and groom, the couple’s residences before marriage, the amount of the “morgongava” or bride gift, sometimes parent’s names, and sometimes information about the legal representative for the bride.

Examples of Swedish Marriage Records

Do you see how they’re different in format? The top one is from 1784 and the bottom one is from 1938. The minister in the top one just wrote everything in a paragraph and the bottom one is in a chart form.  They also included different information. The top one included the marriage date, the feast date, Latin and Swedish words, the groom’s occupation, name, and residence followed by the bride’s information, and no parent’s information.  He also underlined the important information so he can find it again if need be. The bottom one includes the engagement dates, birth dates, page numbers for the household examination books, and the couple’s information.

It’s important to study the differences between records. In this way, you can find your information faster and more efficiently. You don’t have to know all of the Swedish words to find your ancestor in these records.

How do I find a Swedish Marriage Record

If you have a marriage date, parish name, and couple’s names, then all you need to do is go to the Swedish Digital Archives or arkivdigital.se.

This site is a paid subscription unless you are getting online at the Family History Library in Utah or at a local Family History Center.  Otherwise, go to the far right under the Subscription section and pick what you want to start with.  You can try it for free or you can start with a paid subscription.

To find a marriage record, you first type in the County name if you know it.  Family Search Wiki will help you with this part because you need to know both the county name and the parish name in order to find the right records.  After you enter the county name, it will pull up all the records for all of the parishes in this county.  Scroll down until you find your Parish name and congregation records. Then click on the parish.

It will then bring up all of the records for that parish.  Scroll down until you find marriage records for the time that your ancestor was married. Don’t worry about the letters and numbers in the first column.  This is just a Swedish coding system that you don’t have to worry about yet. Just focus on the titles in the second column until it says Banns and Marriage Records. Then find the year that you need and click on it, then click on Open Volume. This will take you to a scanned copy of the original marriage book. From here you can either click on the forward 1 or 5 page button or click on the image/page arrow and scroll to the image/page number. You will have to do some page turning to find the right year, but it’s worth it once you find it.

Need more help?

Here is a six minute tutorial from the Family History Library on how to navigate Sweden’s website.  https://www.familysearch.org/ask/learningViewer/400

If you haven’t read my other articles about marriage records, then you can read them here and here.

As always, I’m here to help if you get stuck. Good luck and happy hunting!

Tiffany