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Scandinavia Genealogy Books

Your Swedish Roots: A Step By Step Handbook (Hardcover)

by Per Clemensson, Kjell Andersson

Today millions of Swedish-Americans are researching their family history. Until now a comprehensive, step by step genealogical handbook for Swedish research has not been available in the English language. Your Swedish Roots A Step by Step Handbook fills that gap.
An American searching for his or her Swedish roots has many advantages, as well as some challenges. Since Sweden has not been at war for close to 200 years, Swedish sources and archives are very extensive and complete. The records are in good order and are easy to find. In fact, the most commonly used church records are now even available on the Internet. Guidance for how to access and use these resources is found in this book.

Even with the abundance of records, family historians must first know some basic facts to be able to interpret these old documents. Your Swedish Roots provides this background information and walks the researcher through the steps necessary to have success. Another challenge is a combination of the languagenot many Americans speak Swedishand the antique script that so many creators of original documents used. A special emphasis has been given to translating and interpreting individual documents to help researchers who may have little or no background in the Swedish language or in reading script.

Spectacular research results in Swedish genealogy are possible only if you know where to find the records, and how to use them when you do. This book is the ultimate, step by step guide.

On the Viking Trail: Travels in Scandinavian America

When his father developed Alzheimer’s disease, Don Lago realized that the stories and traditions of his Swedish ancestors would be lost along with the rest of his father’s memories. Haunted by this inevitable tragedy, Lago set out to fight back against forgetting by researching and reclaiming his long-lost Scandinavian roots.
Beginning his quest with a visit to his ancestral home of Gränna, Sweden, Lago explores all facets of Scandinavian America—Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Icelandic—along the way. He encounters Icelanders living in the Utah desert, a Titanic victim buried beneath a gigantic Swedish coffeepot in Iowa, an Arkansas town named after the famous Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, a real-life Legoland in southern California, and other unique remnants of America’s Scandinavian past. Visits to Sigurd Olson’s legendary cabin on the banks of Burntside Lake in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and Carl Sandburg’s birthplace in Galesburg, Illinois, further provide Lago with an acute sense of the Scandinavian values that so greatly influenced, and continue to influence, American society.

More than just a travel memoir, On the Viking Trail places Scandinavian immigrants and their history within the wider sweep of American culture. Lago’s perceptive eye and amusing tales remind readers of all ethnic backgrounds that to truly appreciate America one must never forget its immigrant past.

Swedish Chicago (Images of America)

At the turn of the 20th century, Chicago was home to the largest Swedish population of any city in the world outside of Stockholm. In the 1920s, Sweden experienced an economic depression and population growth that sparked another rush of Swedish immigration to America and Chicago, where they settled in large numbers in Andersonville and North Park. Chicago has been home to many famous and influential Swedes, including writers Carl Sandburg and Nelson Algren, and builder and developer Andrew Lanquist, who gave us both Wrigley Field and the Wrigley Building. Tour Chicago's Swedish heritage, from the great waves of migration to the present day, through vintage photographs in Swedish Chicago.

About the Author: Paul Michael Peterson is an English teacher and lifelong Chicago resident whose grandparents emigrated from Sweden. He continues to celebrate the yearly traditions that his Swedish heritage has given him, including making gl–gg at Christmas.

Norwegians, Swedes And More: Norway to Minnesota

"Norwegians, Swedes and More" provides a synopsis of our ancestral family components; Norwegians and Swedes as well as those of the French, German, English and Canadian sescent by way of the St. Lawrence Seaway in Quebec and upstate New York.
"Part I, Destination Dakota Territory" describes Loren's multifaceted family from all of the above backgrounds and finds them as homesteaders in Minnehaha County, 'Dakota' [Dakota Territory, South Dakota]. "Part II, Norway to Minnesota" is 'all Norwegian' and finds Mavis' families all homesteading in Lac qui Parle County in west central Minnesota, some having spent months or years in Goodhue County on the eastern border of the state before reaching their final Vesterheim.

This book is the second of six about these families, each containing the same core of material to set the stage for individual family presentations. Book Two provides descriptions and stories about Winge-Hegre ancestors and descendants of Mavis' families who settled in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota after beginning their lives in the Trondheim area of Norway.

A Student's Guide to Scandinavian American Genealogy (Oryx American Family Tree Series)

This major contribution to young adult genealogy studies helps create ethnic pride, self-esteem, and awareness of the extraordinary accomplishments each ethnic group has brought to the American experience. Designed for use in grades 6-12, this important new series explores the creation of the American people while promoting the use and understanding of solid research techniques. Oryx American Family Tree Series enhances the social studies curriculum--especially the thematic strands in the New Curriculum Standards for Social Studies-- * culture, time, continuity, and change * people, places and environment * individual development and identity * individuals, groups, and institutions * power, authority, and governance * global connections While using the volumes in this series, young adults experience a uniquely personalized opportunity to practice the historians craft as they learn how to collect data, obtain and evaluate documents and sources, use the latest electronic tools for researching, and conduct and record eyewitness accounts of historical events in family life. The volumes carefully describe the challenges unique to researching each ethnic group or region. Also explained are the "why" and "how" of tracing their roots if users are adopted or come from nontraditional families. Also, each book in the series provides basic historical and cultural background information. As young adults explore their cultural heritage, they gain self-esteem, personal identity, and ethnic pride. Each volume in the Oryx American Family Tree Series is packed with hundreds of annotated bibliographic references for print, electronic, and media sources, as well as many helpful organizations. Every book is lavishly illustrated with 4-color and black and white photographs throughout and features a glossary and an index. The series is published in sturdy 6" x 9" casebound volumes of approximately 200 pages printed on acid-free paper.

Danes in Wisconsin : Revised and Expanded Edition (Wisc Ethnic Traditions)

by Frederick Hale
Wisconsin Territory’s first Dane arrived in 1829, and by 1860 the state’s Danish-born population had reached 1,150. Yet these newcomers remained only a small segment of Wisconsin’s increasingly complex cultural mosaic, and the challenges of adapting to life in this new land shaped the Danish experience in the state. In this popular book, now revised and expanded with additional historical photos and documents, Frederick Hale offers a concise introduction to Wisconsin’s Danish settlers, exploring their reasons for leaving their homeland, describing their difficult journeys, and examining their adjustments to life on Wisconsin soil. New to this edition are the selected letters of Danish immigrant Andrew Frederickson. These compelling documents, written over a forty-year span, capture the personal observations of one Dane as he made a new life in Wisconsin.
Paperback: 72 pages
Publisher: State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Rev&Expand edition (April 13, 2005)

Swedes in Moline, Illinois 1847-2002

by Lilly Setterdahl
Thousands of Swedes settled in Moline, Illinois, from the late 1840s through the 1920s. For many years they made up the largest ethnic group in the city. They came to work in the plow factories and to join relatives who were here before them. Lilly Setterdahl has drawn from many different sources and brought forward a mosaic of facts and photographs. The reader will learn about the environment facing the new immigrants, how they conquered the challenges of adapting to another culture and language to become Americans and, in many cases, significant contributors to society. Other immigrants groups, no doubt, experienced the same tribulations and rewards.
Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Universal Publishers (March 1, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN: 1581125828