Frequently Asked Questions

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Do not send me a check. It costs me a lot of money to redeem the check.

I send you an invoice with your fee when the research is finished. You do not need to have a PayPal account, just click on the PayPal button in the Invoice mail.
When the fee is on my account I send you the complete final research, either on e-mail or ordinary mail.

Why haven´t I get any answer?

If you have sent a request to me, through e-mail, and I did not respond within 3 business-days, please e-mail me again! You know, Internet's roads can be strange sometimes....

How do I get the results of your search?

You can get it by e-mail or regular mail. Here you can find some samples.

What is Patronymics?

A patronymic is when the children of the father take his first name as their last name. For example, if Peter and Sofia are born to Lars Johansson, they would be known as Peter Larsson and Sofia Larsdotter.

When Peter has children they will have last names of Petersson and Petersdotter. When Sofia marries a man named Bengt, her children would be known as Bengtsson or Bengtsdotter. Sounds confusing, but you will always know who the children's father is!

I have an ancestor who doesn't follow the usual naming patterns, could you explain that?
In the late 1800's, the above mentioned, naming pattern became a problem. Therefore, children started keeping the last name like we do in the United States. You may also find relatives that took on military names or names that were derived from the places that they lived in.

How are Swedish church records organized?

In 1686, the national church of Sweden passed a law to regulate the order within the parishes. This law required all parishes to keep a roll of their members and to know their progress and knowledge of certain parts of their catechism.

This record became known as Husförhörslängd or Clerical Survey Record in English. In this record, the priest examined the family annually to see what they know about their catechism. He also kept track of when family members were born, when they died, when they married and when they moved to another part of the parish or to another parish.

He also kept these records in separate books. He kept a book of births/christenings (Födde/Döpte), a book of deaths/burials (Döde/Begraves), a book of marriages (Vigde) and a book of people moving in and out of the parish (In och utflyttningslängd). All of these records are of great genealogical help.