How to Use the Swedish Archives Website with Ease

So you have Swedish ancestors and you’ve searched all you can in Family Search and Ancestry. Now what? Where do you go to find more original records that aren’t found on Family Search and Ancestry. That’s where the Swedish National Archives come in or better known as the Swedish ArkivDigital. Let me show you a little about how to use this website to find more of your ancestor’s records.

First of all, this is a paid website so if you haven’t found that Swedish record on Family Search or Ancestry, then you will need to pay to retrieve it here. But you can go to your local Family History Center and have access to this website depending on your center.

Swedish Archives Homepage

Here is where you will find everything that you need. You can start your subscription here depending on if you want a monthly, yearly, or beginner subscription. But to look in the archives you need to click the Start the Program button in the top right corner. This will take you to the login page.

Archive Search

This is where the magic happens. You can search by archive, which means by record type such as church records or military records. You also need to put in the Swedish county name to narrow your search. And if you have the Swedish parish name, then even better. The county and parish names are very important when it comes to researching your Swedish ancestors. You can usually find them on American records, so take your time to research all American records to find those place names.

To search in this section, you find the County first, then the Parish if you know it. It will then open up all of the records for this area. You will see congregation records, household (census) records, moving in/out records, etc. When you click on one of these, you will see the original records. Now it will take you some time to familiarize yourself with how the records are laid out. So take your time with them. Also, you will need to know some Swedish words because the original records are in Swedish. You can use this Swedish Genealogical Word list for the most common words used in these records.

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Index Search

Here you can put in your ancestor’s name, parish, birth year, etc. to see what records pull up for them. You can also do a more advanced search by putting in more information. This approach is done by searching for the person first. The archive search is going from the records first in order to find the person. The index search is still very new and may have glitches when you’re trying to search for your ancestor by name. But if you just use the search tips found for Ancestry and Family Search, then you should be just fine.

I’ve learned that you need both ways to find your ancestor because some records will be digitized differently or it was labeled with certain search criteria, etc. So make sure you are searching both ways for your ancestor so you don’t miss any records.

Swedish Archives Summary

This is a fabulous resource to have in your research pocket. This website can be pretty easy to use once you familiarize yourself with it. I hope this article helps with getting to know this website. I love it because of how user friendly it is.

And in the meantime…good luck and happy hunting!

Tiffany

P.S. Related Reads

• What About Swedish Church Records
• Your Swedish Ancestor’s Household Examination Records