ArkivDigital (Sweden) - Epic Fail

Were you excited about the free two-day access to ArkivDigital? I was. I had grand illusions of seeing what records I could find out about the family of Carl Gustav Nordstrom, my great-grandfather. I had really no research plan, I was, as they say in the Ancestry.com commercials, going to "just look."

I overlooked one pertinent fact. The same weekend of free access to ArkivDigital was the same weekend my sister and her four (yes, four) children would be at my house. On Saturday while my sister, our parents and her eldest daughter were out, I would be in charge of the other three. We did puzzles in the morning and then I took them to the zoo after lunch. It was sunny, but probably not much more than 40. Then when we got home I made everyone blueberry buttermilk pancakes for dinner.

Sunday morning, I could barely move.  Heck, I could barely keep my eyes open. After everyone left, I turned on my computer to start preparing for a new class and I saw the icon for ArkivDigital. I figured, well, let's try it. I had no problem accessing it and I found archives for Halmstad, where my great-grandfather was from. But I typed "Nordstrom" into the search box and got NOTHING. I tried his full name, his first name and his surname. I even tried Nordström. Still, NOTHING.

I realized that ArkivDigital was not so simple to search and I needed to find some instructions. I also needed a nap. So, I turned off the computer intending to figure it out later in the day. The next time I thought of it, it was well past 11 pm. and I had completely missed the free research window.

I'll leave the icon on my desktop. For who knows, maybe I'll come up with some money to subscribe to the site or maybe I'll be better organized if they make the same offer for Genealogy Research Day 2012. Then again maybe I won't.