G enealogy in Sweden can at the earliest be traced back to the time for certain Swedish rune stone engravements. During the former half of the sixteenth century did bishop Hans Brask record his family book over mainly important potentates of that time. During the latter half of the same century did the works of Brask, along with other, more distributed present information, sometimes in the form of letters, constitute the foundation of the excellent works of Rasmus Ludvigsson in this field. A number of families were recorded in Sveriges Ridderskap och Adelskalender in the nineteenth century, which was continuosly publiced in 98 editions. Gabriel Anrep established the first collection of information about common families, which was intended for printing, at the same time. The publication of the magazine Släkt och Hävd was initiated in 1950.

T here are usually some basic information about close kinship counted from the probant right from the start. If one wishes to start from oneself and lay down a genealogical table, the first level is the church of the parish, and on top of this census registers, as well as estate inventories. For similar matters about family older than 100 years one has to consult the regional archives. The Military Archives contains information about individuals who have done their military service, as well. Since the mormons of Salt Lake City methodically microfilmed large numbers of important source material have copies of those films constituted a better, accessible source of information for genealogists. The copies are available at various county libraries across Sweden. As a genealogist, you either search back in time to compile a genealogical table. The other alternative is to start from an ancestor and then do a genealogical table forward in time. Genealogical tables soon enough gathers a large number of names and calls for organisation. The common way of bringing organization about is to use special forms with, for example, 6 family lines for each form. The information on the different forms are connected by references after that. The single most common system is called Kekule von Stradonitz´ system. The probant is indicated as nr. 1, the father as 2, the mother as 3, the paternal grandfather as 4, the paternal grandmother as 5, maternal grandmother as 7 and paternal great-grandfather as 8. The index is doubled by every paternal generation in this way. Other, in fact better, but even so more rarely used systems is Engströms´ system and Hagers´ system.

S weden has a history of taxes and burdens. The attempts of the state to bring order about in the population to demand taxes and military service in the best way possible is one of the reasons as to why there is information even about the common people of former times. The church has had a fairly strong position, as well. The priest recorded information about household registers in order to assure himself about the Christian consciousness of people. One recorded which people that lived in the parish and how they behaved to each other. A few references about the complications of ordinary life were made every now and then, as well. Finland historically belonged together with Sweden. That is why old household registers have been kept in Finland as in Sweden. The Genealogical Society of Finland has in addition to this contributed with transcriptions of the old Church Books of Finland. The transcriptions is to be found in the National Archive of Finland. Germany has above all quite a few pieces of documentation that has been kept in connection to historical investigations.

R egional archives are to be found in Östersund, Härnösand, Uppsala, Vadstena, Visby, Göteborg and Lund. In Stockholm you may find the National Archive as well as the Military Archive.

   kåre andersson