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to Sweden Newsletter no 26 September 2008 |
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Visby, Gotland |
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Hej!
I have been sitting here wondering what you might want to read about in this newsletter. As always I want the information to be useful to you, with links to some entertaining and interesting sites. I hope that I have succeeded in doing so. |
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Gotland This island is quite different from the rest of Sweden! Where else can you sit inside a one thousand year old church ruin, in its only small city of Visby, drinking good strong Swedish coffee and eat a delicious pastry. After that indulgance you might feel like taking a walk on the narrow cobble stone streets, admiring the old stone buildings and the ancient wall that surounds the city. Not to mention roses, roses and roses! The Baltic sea is everywhere, since Visby was built right on its shores. If you would like to see what Stora torget (the big square) at Visby looks like right now, try this web camera! About 12 000 people emigrated from Gotland. This might not seem like that many, unless you realize that the entire population was only around 50 000 100 years ago. Many emigrants came from Visby, which then looked more like this. but also from the farms of southern Gotland as well as the more barren areas of the north. Havdhem is one of the parishes from where many emigrated. Check out the website Parishes at Gotland - in Swedish, but not too hard to understand. Click on the parish you are interested in and you'll see a photo of its church and also a list of the farms (gårdarna). One more useful site: a map of Gotland (click on it for more details). So where did the Gotland emigrants settle? Many went to the big cities in the USA, e.g. Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. In the emigration records you'll often find that the destination was New York, even though the journey continued to other parts of North America. Some settled in Kansas, e.g. in New Gotland, others moved to Ohio (Akron and Ashtabula), Michigan (Big Rapids, Escanaba, Ministee), Minnesota (Minneapolis and St Paul), Illinois (Chicago and Rockford) and also to Canada (Winnipeg, Montreal). Family Esklund emigrated from Gotland to Utah, after becoming Mormons in Sweden. Read their fascinating story about travels, in 1862, from their old home at Gotland to their new one in Utah. Another Gotland emigrant wrote a letter (in English) from Kansas to a Gotland newspaper. Interesting information about the areas of Kansas where many Swedes settled. |
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The archives
The parish minister had to keep track of all important events occurring in his parish and recorded them in the church books: a child was born, a couple married, someone moved to another parish, or emigrated, or a person died. These records were later photocopied and the originals sent to Landsarkivet, the regional archive, of the particular area. Much of the material is now also available on the Internet. These links will take you to the
main page of the archives. Most information is in
Swedish, but often, in the upper right corner, you will find a link
to an English summary. I'll assume that you are sitting at your kitchen table or in your office somewhere in North America or in Australia, doing your research. Then you'll be glad to know that SVAR has a lot of material on the Internet. You have to subscribe and pay a fee, but much less than for a trip to Sweden! You can also contact landsarkiven, the
ten regional archives, each one storing documents from
one or several counties (län). This is
where you want to write, or call, in order to find
birth, marriage, moving and death records, from the
1600s to, in many cases, the 1990s. You would like a
copy of grandma's birth records? Contact the regional
archives and they will send it to you! I suggest that,
when you visit Sweden, you spend a few hours at the
regional archives and look for court
records, school records and lots of interesting other
material. These websites are in Swedish and might be quite difficult
for you to understand. Clicking on 'English' will give you general information
about the archives in English.
* Gävleborg
* Dalarna (previously Kopparberg)
* Göteborgs och Bohus län
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I hope that you are now able to contact the right archives in order to get the help you need as you are doing your research. If you need some help, don't hesitate to contact me, and I'll do my best to help. Remember that there is no charge the first time I help you with your research! By the way, if you are planning to visit Sweden next summer, it's a good idea to start your research soon, since it often takes more time than expected. If you would like my help, this is a good time to contact me, so that you can find your Swedish relatives before your trip. Finally, I would like to wish you
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Marie
Louise Bratt This is how you get to our front page!
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I
just returned from a trip to the beautiful island of
Gotland. Since it's on my mind, I'll tell you about it and about the
emigration from there.