On the Move in Sweden

twitter.com/HistoricalPics

I remember my grandmother, Karin Nordstrom Hood, telling me a story about Sweden. They used to drive on the left like the British but felt they should join the majority of the world that drove on the right, so they decided to change. My grandma said that the change took three days: on the first day nobody drove, on the second only government vehicles and then on the third day everybody drove. While, I never thought my grandma made this story up (she had been to Sweden after all), it always seemed like such a fantastic story to me, totally unbelievable.

Then today, I saw the tweet pictured above. My grandmother's story, confirmed, totally out of the blue. Although, perhaps the switch did not happen as seamlessly as her story led me to believe.

My mother remembered that this change was reported in the papers, so it must have been a big deal. Since my grandmother had close connections with Sweden, she would have remembered this more than other "big deal" stories of 1967. I just love Twitter, don't you?

In Search of My Swedish Ancestors – Phase One – Complete

When I last tried out ArkivDigital, I was having trouble figuring out what parishes to look in. It was suggested that I look for my ancestors first in FamilySearch and then use that information to find them in ArkivDigital.

I put this project on my to-do list almost every day for a month and finally got to it last week. It didn’t take too long, but did not produce the anticipated results.

• Result One – there appears to be either an indexing or microfilming black hole around the city of Lund. Of all my ancestors from the part of Sweden, I found a total of one (yes, one) marriage record.  This is primarily the Nordstrom family – my great-grandfather, his parents, and his father’s ancestors. My cousin included them in the published genealogy, but not his sources.  
• Result Two – I would estimate that most of the ancestors were not in FamilySearch, or at least not as listed by my cousin. Many of these individuals were born in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, so I can’t be sure that they existed, so to speak.
• Result Three – I found siblings for several of my direct ancestors. As the published genealogy was at least 20 pages, it does not surprise me that only direct ancestors were included. I will have to remember to keep my eyes peeled for siblings of other ancestors.
• Result Four – I discovered that Victor Witting (1825-1906) went to Chicago and died in Quincy, MA. He is buried in the Swedish Cemetery in Worcester, MA. Victor Witting would have been the great-uncle of my great-grandfather, Carl Gustav Nordstrom (1877-1931).
• Result Five – Many of these individuals were baptized under a patronymic surname.  For example, my great-great Grandmother, who I’ve always known as Christina Gustave Mathilda Petterson was baptized in 1847 as Christina Gustave Mathilda Johannsdatter. I was, obviously, aware of patronymics but I thought they had been abandoned much earlier. Just another challenge.

Next up – phase 2 – activating my ArkivDigital membership and starting the hunt proper for my Swedish ancestors.

Sweden Tweets

Twitter is a great repository of news, gossip and fun. Recently, it has become a source of information about Sweden. VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute have teamed up to create Curators of Sweden. Each week a different Swedish citizen takes over the @Sweden Twitter account. You can read more about the project here and visit an archive of previous curators here. 

I think it's a really neat promotion. Of course, I already wanted to visit Sweden, so my opinion might not count for much with VisitSweden. So far each of the Swedish curators has enjoyed the experience at there end as well. You don't need to be on Twitter to follow the account, you can visit the @Sweden page or the Curators of Sweden page for the most recent tweets.

Printing Sweden (and Finland)

This week I have, to my surprise (and probably yours) made a small start on the hunt for my Scandinavian ancestors. I printed out family group sheets for all the ancestors on the Swedish side of my family. There are over 50 family groups sheets now placed in alphabetical order in a binder I found in the basement. 


How do I already have over 50 family in my Family Tree Maker database? Because in 1980 a cousin, Torkel Nordstom, published a genealogy of his ancestors in Släkt och Hävd (read a smidgen more here). Ages ago I entered in much of this information into an earlier incarnation of FTM, which means none of it is properly cited. Although I'm not sure this matters because I know exactly where I got the information and we have a copy of the journal. One reason for this particular ancestor-hunting project, is to see if Torkel "got it right" and to see if I can find more than he could since so much of the data is now available on-line.


Those of you who have been with this blog since the beginning might remember that I had planned to digitize most of my data and use Microsoft OneNote (here and here). I do still like that idea, but this project has a time limit - I purchased a three-month subscription to ArkivDigital. Therefore, I thought writing things down on paper might be better than switching screens and cutting and pasting on the computer. Only time will tell if this judgement was correct.


One thing that surprised me when printing out the group sheets is how many of my presumed ancestors lived in Finland. I knew at least one family had ended up there, but I had forgotten it was so many. These ancestors are likely Swedish though, and not Finnish as there was much Swedish emigration to Finland. Additionally, Sweden was a big fish in the European pond in the 17th century and had influence everywhere. At least this is what I remember from reading The Concise History of Sweden (read the post here)


And just to round out this virtual tour of Scandinavia, here is a post from Randall Stephens, an historian at Eastern Nazarene College on his recent adventures in Norway. Stephens is currently a Fulbright Roving Scholar in American Studies in Norway.

What Might Happen at the Historian's Family in 2012

It's early January and I, not unlike most people at this time of the year, am full of ideas and ambition about what can be accomplished in the upcoming year. At the top of the list is devoting more attention to The Historian's Family by blogging more about history and my search for ancestors. Of course, the latter is dependent upon my actually doing some research; but, fear not, I have a plan.

History, the academy and genealogy: At the close of 2011 a member of the APG posed a few interesting questions (I must admit I don't even remember what they were) and the responses and ensuing conversation totally exploded - like an algae bloom or supernova - into several different threads and topics. The deluge of messages streaming into my inbox had three major themes: the future of the APG, professional v. amateur, and genealogy's relationship to the academy. While the first two topics were interesting (and I do have some thoughts on the pro v. amateur debate), I was inspired by the genealogy v. academic thread. I was reminded that of the missions of both my blogs: to bridge the gap between professional and armchair historians. To this end, I had even proposed a lecture to NGS entitled "Looking at the Ivory Tower: Understanding and Using Academic History." Like so many lecture proposals, this one too was "rejected, refused, rebuffed, and repudiated" (to quote my favorite line from Gigi). In the midst of the APG debate, it occurred to me that I can blog about this topic here instead. In 2012 look for posts on how academic history "works", how it has changed in the past 50 years, ways in which academics use genealogy, and more.

Swedish Ancestors: For most of my life I have been very uninterested in my Scandinavian ancestors. For better or worse I have been "angry" with all of Scandinavia because my great-grandparents, Carl Nordstrom and Magdalena Larsen, both died when my grandmother was a teenager. Additionally, while my mom was growing up it was the Scottish side of her ancestry that was stressed. This continued during my childhood, with the exception of my grandmother's Norwegian baking (mmmmm... cardamon). For some reason, my attitude over the past year has changed. Perhaps because Troll beads are so trendy, because I've been stalked by Sweden, or maybe because of the blog. To be sure I get something done, I signed up for a three month subscription to ArkivDigital. The clock is ticking ....

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & Family History: There were many prompts in this series that I did want to post about. I even have drafts for two of them. But I just never did anything about it. So, maybe I'll do some of them this year.

Birthdays: I also have this idea about posting biographies/snippets about ancestors on their birthdays. On the other hand, reading about other people's ancestor's can (but not necessarily) be quite boring. Then again, I have pictures of many of them, so it could be quite neat. Realistically, however, this might just be too much and send me over the edge of the blogosphere.

Who knows what else will turn up in the ensuing year? Who knows, if I'll even accomplish what I've set out here? Stay tuned for further developments...

Thoughts on Monarchy

Crown of King Christian IV of Denmark

The secret goal of many genealogists is to connect themselves to Royalty. I suppose I would have to include myself in this category. Based upon what I already know about my family, however, any "royalty" I'm connected to is likely a chieftain of a Neolithic agricultural village and therefore totally untraceable.

Part of the reason for this wish for royal roots is that we want to be connected to somebody important enough to make it into the history books. Or maybe we secretly want our own royal wedding. Pomp and Matrimony is a BBC World Service Documentary about British Royal Weddings of the 20th century. Read about the program and download it here.

For most Americans (and I mean United Statesians), no matter how much we admire prince and princesses and are dazzled by their pictures in magazines (think Princess Diana, the recent marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton), I don't think we'd really want an actual perpetual landed class and hereditary monarchy. Like me, many of Americans, are probably quite content to watch other countries' royals but are also kind of glad they are somebody else's problem. The pros and cons of monarchy are addressed by another BBC World Archive Documentary, For King or Country. Episode 1 presents the republican case based on the experience of Sweden (information & download here). Episode 2 presents the monarchical case, oddly enough mostly with evidence from the United States (information & download here).

Both of the presenters make good cases; but I can't help but thinking that the argument for monarchy might have been more compelling if more of the evidence had come from people who actually lived under a monarchical government.

image credit: Ikiwaner via Wikipedia.com

Sweden: Learning More

You might remember that over the summer I was being stalked by Sweden. Well, the stalking has continued, but is a bit more subtle. I had checked out an started to read the only book on Swedish history at my library, Sweden: The Nation's History by Franklin D. Scott. The first chapter was on the settlement of Sweden - migration patterns of the Neolithic - normally, I find this fascinating. However, every so often he would say something to the effect of "future research might show..." Well, the book was originally written in the 1970s, so I kept thinking, "surely somebody has figured out something in the last 30 years!"

I returned the Scott book and looked for a more recent one. I found A Concise History of Sweden by Neil Kent, published in 2008. While not the most riveting text it was recent and it was concise. If you are interested in Swedish history it would be a good place to start. Unfortunately, the Neolithic Settlement period got like a page and a half and the Vikings got about five pages. But I did finish it and learned about the county, its relationships with other European countries and its commitment to neutrality. I particularly enjoyed Chapter 8, "The Industrialisation and Capitalisation of Sweden" as it covered the time period my great-grandfather, Carl Gustav Nordstrom and his parents, lived in Sweden.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Today, Septebmer 5th, my grandmother, Karin Synnove Grace Nordstrom, would have been have been 96 years old. It's a whole lot of names for such a little girl, but there is a reason: Karin was her Swedish name, Synnove her Norwegian one; and Grace her American one.

She is probably about 2 or 3 years old in the photo above, one of a series of her taken in traditional Scandinavian costume. Grandma, though born in America, did not learn to speak English until her fifth summer, when her parents decided to stay in this country.

We miss you Grandma!

Help - I’m Being Stalked by Sweden

I think I am being stalked by Sweden. Why do I think this, you ask? Well, consider the following: 

June 25^th: I watched part of a documentary about the raising of the Vasa, a warship commissioned by Gustav II Adolph, which sank in 1628. The new genealogy blogs posted on Geneabloggers, that same day, included Skäktresan. It is entirely in Swedish, so it could list all my Swedish ancestors back to the year dot, and I couldn’t tell. The one bit I could read was a link to SwedGenTour 2011, a series of talks on Swedish Genealogy to be given in various US locations this September. More information is available here. None of their stops are close to me. Bummer.

June 26^th: This review of The Inspector in Silence by Håkan Nesser, a mystery novel originally published in Swedish in 1997, was published in the Arts section of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Sounds like a good read.

June 27^th: This article on a gender-neutral preschool in Sweden appeared in the Monday edition of the Plain Dealer. I can understand why they would want to do it, but on the other hand, it seems kind of silly.

June 30^th: I had to pick up some books at my local library and on a whim checked to see if there any books on Swedish history. Surprisingly, as the branch is not very big, there was one – Sweden. The Nation’s History by Franklin D. Scott. It’s over twenty years old, but I checked it out anyway. It is now sitting on a shelf, where it will likely remain until I return to the library - unread, like most books I check out.

June 30^th: I took some time to catch up about four weeks’ worth of Time magazine. In the June 27^th edition was Grand Larssony a review of mystery novels: The Snowman by the Norwegian author Jo Nesbø and The Hypnotist by the Swede Lars Kepler. They also sound like good reads. The July 4^th edition included Northern Star, an article about Stockholm’s progress towards its goal of being fossil-fuel free by 2050. If you are interested in sustainability issues this is a great article.

July 1^st: An APG member posted a request for help finding the death date of a Swedish woman who died in the mid-sixties.

July 2^nd: In this week’s broadcast of It’s Only a Game, Charles Pierce told an anecdote about a Swedish tennis player (of whom I’ve never heard) whose matches were announced via radio in Sweden.

July 3^rd: Okay, by this morning I was looking for references to Sweden. But that didn’t mean I would find them. Although, I really could not have missed the almost full-page article about Sweden on page 2 of today’s Business section, a reprint from the June 25th edition of The Washington Post. The article detailed how the lessons learned during a financial crisis of the early 1990s have helped Sweden weather the current one.

Apparently, PR professionals in Scandinavia are working on overdrive. But why I am noticing all of these articles? Why now? Should I look for a job in Sweden? Are my ancestor’s calling on me to find and “visit” them? Am I reading the wrong sorts of books? I know I am probably being silly, but, on the other hand, I don’t believe in coincidences.

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.

Free Access to ArkivDigital (Sweden) this weekend, 19 and 20 March

I read about this offer at the National Genealogical Societ blog, UpFront with NGS. However, the share buttons on their blog do not include Blogger. So, I went to ArkivDigital and cut and pasted the announcement myself.  The orignal announcement from ArkivDigital is here.

I installed the program that they require. The instructions are in Swedish, but they are easy enough to figure out. However, I've had problems logging in - I'm not sure whether something went wrong during installation or whether it's because I don't have full acess to the site until this weekend. I'll see if I can't figure it out and report back.

ArkivDigital for free March 19-20 2011

Published 2011-03-15

Celebrate the “Genealogy Research Day with us”
“Genealogy Research Day” (Sweden) will be celebrated around the country again on Saturday, March 19th 2011. In many places the local genealogical societies, archives and libraries will be hosting this event. Genealogy Research Day is a chance for many, both new and experienced genealogy researchers to meet and exchange experiences .

Special ADOnLine2 “Genealogy Research Day” free research offer
ArkivDigital and our online service ADOnLine2, will be free of charge this weekend, March 19th to 20th. We hope that this offer also will help genealogical societies and archives to demonstrate, in the best possible way, what modern genealogical research is all about.

Special prices on “1 Year” and “2 Years” subscriptions
From March 16th through April 3rd 2011 you can purchase any of these subscriptions at special prices. You have now the opportunity to purchase one year for only 995 SEK (regular price SEK 1195) or two years for only 1750 SEK (regular price SEK 2390). These offers apply only to individuals. (Approximately exchange rates 2011.03.15; 995.00 SEK = 154 USD = 111 EUR)

How do I get access to ArkivDigital for free?
To get access to ArkivDigital’s service ADOnLine2 for free, you’ll have to go through a few steps. It’s not difficult and you should be able to make it if you follow the steps below carefully:

1. Register with us
   - If you are already registered, go to the next paragraph.
   - If you are not registered as a member before, you will have to do the following: Go to: http://www.arkivdigital.net/users/register and fill in the information requested. Be extra careful to write the correct email address and password you choose. The password must be at least 6 characters long.
2. Install the program ADOnLine2, http://www.arkivdigital.net/products/adonline/installation. If you do not have the latest version, we advise you to install it now. The latest version is called 1.4.1 (rev 511). You can check which version you have if you have the application running, press the “Hjälp” (Help) menu and then click “Om” (About).
3. During installation, you will be asked some questions. You must respond to them "positively" and when the installation is complete, you will have a new icon on your desktop called ADOnLine2.
4. Double-click the icon to start the program. 
5. Now the login box appears. Please enter your login information (email and password). Be sure to enter exactly the same way as you did when you registered. It is a difference between capital and lowercase letters. If you receive an error regarding “e-post/lösenord” (email address/password) there is something wrong. Click to clear the error messages and then on the File menu and login. Now, the login box appears again. Erase all information and fill in the information again.
6. Once you have logged in you can start your research. 
7. To the left is a list of records archive holders. Search for "your" parish in the list or type it directly into the search field above. Click on the name to choose. 
8. To the right a list of volumes from your chosen parish appears. Search for the right volume in the list and double click the left mouse button to open the volume. 
9. When the volume is opened, you can browse by clicking the -5, -1, +1 and +5 buttons or make a direct choice in the drop-down list (between the -1 and +1 buttons). 
10. On the installation page you will also find a manual for the program.

Frequently asked questions and problems

• I already have a subscription – How can I benefit from this offer?
  Answer: We will extend all current subscriptions with two extra days for free.
• If you have problems with the program and want help, please give us as much information as possible in your first contact with us; which version you use and what type of operation caused the error. Please include the information of any error messages. The more information you can supply the quicker we can help you – thank you in advance 
• If you want to try to solve the problem on your own you can try to install an older version of the program. At the bottom of the Setup page we provide links to older versions. Sometimes they work better. 
• If you have automatic login checked and are receiving an error message regarding “e-post/lösenord” (email address/password), Click to clear the error messages and then on the “Arkiv” menu (File), then click “Logga In” (Log in). Now, the login box appears again. Erase all information and type them in again carefully.

Support
During the weekend we will answer questions as soon as we can. Sometimes there is a lot of questions and it may take a little while before you get an answer, but we will answer all questions. It is always best to send questions via email to: kundtjanst@arkivdigital.se