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.
