Newsletter no 15
September 2004

Skokloster castle
Uppland

Photo: Marie Louise Bratt

Go to this website and click on Gravstenarna. The text is in Swedish, but just click on the län (county) and then the församling (parish) and this is what you'll see:

Translations:

Sten - stone
Förnamn - first name
Efternamn - last name
Gård - farm
År - year
Fritext - "free" text
Fam grav - family grave
Hustru 1 år - wife 1 year
Hustru 1 förnamn - wife 1 first name
Registrerare - person recording this information

* indicates the year of birth
+ indicates the year of death

Note: Swedish grave stones are often removed after a certain time (25 years is common) unless someone is taking care of the grave. Also, if the family of the deceased person was poor, often only a wooden cross was placed upon the grave. This cross, of course, decomposed after a few years.   

2. DIS
Föreningen för Datorhjälp i Släktforskningen
(The Computer Genealogy Society of Sweden) is a wonderful group, who collect genealogy data from its approximately 19,000 members. They now have around 8 million records of Swedes living before 1913, accessible on their website, the DISBYT database. 

There is no cost at all to use the basic functions. However, if you become a member, for a fee, you'll get more information about each entry and you can also add your own information to the database.

3. About the Swedish soldier
In the husförhörslängd, in the church records, you might have found a little note in the margin saying sol., short for soldat, soldier. This soldier lived with his family in a soldattorp, a small homestead especially built for soldier families.

Several farms in the area, a rote, supplied the soldier with this soldattorp as well as some grains, logs etc. The family often owned a cow or two and grew some vegetables. However, when war started, which often happened, soldaten had to go and his wife and children had to take over.    

Becoming a soldier was a way for a poor, but strong and healthy, man to make a living. Being a soldier was, of course, a dangerous and tiring job, and the soldier could become ill, be injured and even be killed. 

Soldiers often were assigned new names, usually short ones which related to the life of a soldier, for example Modig (courageous), Svärd (sword),  Stål (steel) or Sköld (shield). A soldier sometimes got the name of the soldier who lived in the soldattorp before him, causing problems for you and me when researching the family. 

Do you want to learn more about the Swedish soldier? Then let me suggest this website with interesting information, all in English. Krigsarkivet,  the Military Archives, also has lots of interesting material about soldiers.  Here is another page with links to databases of soldiers from all over Sweden. 

As usual, if you enjoy this newsletter and find it helpful, please forward it to your friends and relatives. But if you no longer want to receive it, just let me know and I'll remove your name from my list of subscribers.  

I wish you a very beautiful and colorful HÖST (fall). And for those of you in the southern states of the US, who are suffering from problems related to hurrican Ivan,  know that we are thinking of you and wishing you the best. 

Marie Louise Bratt
www.bridgetosweden.com