🇸🇪 Sweden · Swedish
Sweden Family Tree
Swedish genealogy is rich and well-documented, with church records (kyrkoböcker) dating back to the 1600s. The patronymic naming system (Andersson = son of Anders) makes Swedish genealogy both fascinating and challenging.
Sweden naming patterns
Until the late 1800s, most Swedes used patronymic surnames — your last name was your father's first name plus "-son" or "-dotter". This means surnames changed every generation. In the 1900s, families began adopting fixed surnames, often nature-inspired (Lindberg = "linden mountain", Bergström = "mountain stream").
Common Sweden surnames
Where to find Sweden records
- Swedish Church Records (Kyrkoarkivet)
- Riksarkivet (National Archives)
- ArkivDigital
- Ancestry.com Swedish records
- FamilySearch Sweden collection
Migration history
Between 1850-1930, approximately 1.3 million Swedes emigrated, mostly to the United States. Minnesota, Illinois, and Washington state received the largest numbers.
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