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- [00:03]
A
Welcome to the Family Tree Magazine podcast. This is the show from America's number one genealogy magazine. I'm Andrew Cook, editor of Family Tree magazine. Each summer we release our list of the 101 best genealogy websites. Some are big, some are small, some focus on the United States, while others collect records and resources for a certain country or ethnic group. One of this year's nominees is Archiv Digital, a Swedish genealogy website that offers digitized church books, aerial photos and more. I'm here with Kathy Mead, a Swedish genealogy expert and North American representative for Arkiv Digital, to talk about the site and take a behind the scenes look at what it can offer genealogists. Welcome to the podcast, Kathy.
- [00:47]
B
Well, thank you. I'm glad to be here.
- [00:50]
A
So, for those listeners who aren't familiar with the site already, what would you say are some of Archive Digital's major collections?
- [00:59]
B
All right, Archive Digital has. Well, they have the Swedish church books from the earliest times, about the 1600s up until 1950. There's a law of privacy. So even though the records go up until 1991, we have them up until about 1950. So, and these are newly photographed colored images. And those are the first set of records that people look at when they usually jump the pond. The next set of records are the estate inventories or the probate records. And we have those going back to the 1600s up until 1960 for all of Sweden. And we're currently actually adding them up until 1979. We also have lots of military records going back to the late 1500s up until 1950. And then if you have a prisoner or a criminal in your background, we have lots and lots of prison records. Plus we have tax records, we have passengership manifests for people leaving from ports within Sweden. And then we also have index records to the Swedish census. And it's not like the census we have, it's more like with taxes for 1940-1950-1960-1970, 1975, 1980, 1985 and 1990. And when you search on those, you can search for anyone living in Sweden at that point in time. So those are great for helping people finding living relatives. We also have some other types of records. We have 100 archive types. Some are very large, some are very small, but we have orphanage collections, we have nobility, we have school records. Just name it. And we also have a lot of scanned books. So it's just. And then you mentioned aerial photographs. We have over 3 million aerial photos within Archive Digital, primarily from the 70s, but we also have some scanned books of farms and estates. So those are quite helpful when people are really looking at maybe historical farms.
- [02:57]
A
Really good variety there. And you mentioned that the church books are sort of the first entry point. I'm always impressed when hearing about records from other countries, especially in Europe, at how deep the coverage goes. 1500, 1600s. 1500s. And you know me, an American. Wow, That's a long time ago. But the collections even stretch up to, I think, the latest census, you said was 1985. That's.
- [03:24]
B
Well, actually, there's a later one. There was one in 2000, and it's really related to tax records, but we have them up to 1990 within Archivedigital. There's a CD that you can get for year 2000, but that's not online.
- [03:39]
A
And talk about privacy records. I mean, the 1950 U.S. census is the most recent, so we've got a ways to go.
- [03:46]
B
Yes, it's amazing how many people can find living relatives and they actually meet them when they go to Sweden.
- [03:56]
A
I've heard a lot of stories of people reconnecting that way. They go back to their ancestral hometown sort of on a lark. But, hey, this person happened to have the same ancestor as one of my or the same name as one of my ancestors. And all of a sudden you're at the family homestead and you're in front of a tombstone. And the institutional memory in some of these towns is really, really impressive.
- [04:21]
B
Yes, there's very many people. In fact, I just helped a man recently, and he just sent me a text this morning saying that he was having thika as somebody that lived on a farm near where his ancestors came from, I think as a. Coffee. Having coffee.
- [04:38]
A
Yeah. Well, you talked a lot about resources for the country of Sweden or from the country of Sweden. The website has a really robust English interface, which is great for our listeners. Do you also have any records from this side of the pond that would be of interest to Swedish genealogists?
- [04:56]
B
Yes, we do have some Swedish American church records, primarily from states in the Midwest. We probably have a pretty complete collection for the state of Kansas and also Nebraska. We have 250 congregations from Minnesota, but there were 600 congregations in Minnesota, so that represents about 25%. We have a good collection in Iowa, primarily from the central and western part of Iowa. And then we have a few in some surrounding states. Just. We also have some in Colorado in the Denver and the Boulder area, but primarily. And we've gone out and newly photographed those books. Those are not scans of microfilms, so those are primarily Lutheran. But there's also some free churches, Methodists and Baptists, a couple of others follows
- [05:49]
A
the general settlement patterns for a lot of Swedes and I would think Scandinavians more broadly, the upper Midwest and, you know, all kind of living together and moving together places. And you mentioned that a lot of the church records are Lutheran. The Lutheran church was the state religion of Sweden.
- [06:09]
B
Yes, Lutheran was a state church. I mean, really, up until. Really, I can't remember. I lived in Sweden in the 90s and it was still a state church at that point in time. Now it's no longer a state church, but it definitely is. But there were other denominations were introduced in the latter part of the 19th century.
- [06:30]
A
In general, what goes into acquiring and digitizing these records? You mentioned that you had some from the US that Archive Digital had scanned themselves. They didn't come from microfilm. Is it a partnership with archives or how does that happen behind the scenes?
- [06:47]
B
Okay. Within Sweden, we actually work with the National Swedish Archives site. So we actually have photographers actually working at each one of the archives. So they're photographing the records. So primarily, most of the records within Sweden are with the archives in the United States. We actually, for instance, we actually. In Kansas, we partnered with a museum in Kansas. And then we actually had, in one case, we brought a photographer from Sweden here to actually do the work. And in a couple of cases, we train people here in the States to do the work. But there are certain quality standards and also certain equipment that archivedigital required for the filming. Right.
- [07:31]
A
Because when you're digitizing these images, it's very important for them to be high resolution. It's not just that somebody's looking at a reproduction in their office. They're on a computer screen wanting to zoom in for details and maybe wanting to page back and forth virtually. So there's. It's not as simple as just putting an old piece of paper on a digital scanner. There's a process and a set of highly sophisticated equipment.
- [08:00]
B
Right, right. So I mean, the work that was done here in. And I didn't do the work, although I coordinated some of the working with the photographers, but they did all the work. And then it had to be transmitted to Sweden to be reviewed before it was loaded to actually the site.
- [08:17]
A
So there was a review process too, to make sure everything's up to snuff?
- [08:21]
B
Yes, very much. Very much. So
- [08:25]
A
what tips do you have for using the site?
- [08:28]
B
Okay. I think Swedish genealogy has really changed quite a bit as far as searching. When I started, actually I started working with Swedish genealogy more than 20 years ago. And at that point in the time, there was only one site that actually even had digitized records. But you still had to know your Swedish ancestor's name. Primarily, you had to know the parish. That was really key because there's over 2,400 parishes within Sweden. And then also significant dates, such as a birth date, in order to actually find the person or to jump the pond. You really didn't have that information. It was nearly impossible to jump the pond. Then there were more indexes that came out over the years. And I still tell people that really they should try to get as much information as they can before they jump the pond, because there's a lot of Johann Anderson's. So you can get the wrong person. But it's becoming a little bit easier, especially with an RQ digital. We have one index called the Population of Sweden, where we'd index all the household examination books between 1800 and up to 1952 by name. And we're also indexing the records prior to 1800 currently. But if you had somebody that was living in Sweden in the mid-1800s, most people didn't immigrate until after, you know, there was some that started 1840, but it was mostly about 1860 was at the beginning of it. You can actually go ahead and search by that criteria and it will come up with the household records and then it will point you to where the birth record is and that can open up, that can make it, you know, much easier. Usually I still tell people a lot of times, go, if you have that information, go and find the birth record. And now a lot of these records are now being searchable, so you can actually just search for it. But if you don't, you look for the archive for that parish, you look for the book for the birth record, and then you go in and get the birth date and then that will give you information more about the parents and actually the farm or the village that they live in, the parish. And then you can go to the household record. But with the name, searching it is just making it so much easier to actually find more records for your family with less browsing through the books.
- [10:50]
A
You mentioned household examination records, and earlier we were talking about how Swedish censuses are really more like tax lists or were done for tax purposes. Those household examination books are going to be closer to what us genealogists are thinking of with censuses. Is that right?
- [11:05]
B
Yeah, there's two types when I mention it. Household examination books were actually books created by the church and people were tested on their Religious understanding once a year. So these household examination books, the actual book, some of them cover five years, some of them cover 10 years, but they were updated every single year. So the detail in the book is list every. It's like an inventory of everyone living in the household. Their birth date, their birthplace, sometimes the date of the person, when they got the head of the household, when they got married, if they moved into that place during that time that that book was there, would say where they came from and what year they moved out. We give that information. And then sometimes there's information such as this person was very old or maybe very sick. Sometimes I've seen it where a person was committed to a mental institution or maybe, and people were supposed to tell the minister when they moved, but sometimes they didn't. So they would say, oh, we think this person is in North America. And there's a lot of information that's recorded in these books. And they were updated again every single year. So those household examination books and then congregation books, really sort of one of the key things within Swedish genealogy, because combined with the vital records in these household books, then you can really trace your family many times from birth to immigration or birth to death, year by year, which is really.
- [12:34]
A
I can see why you point people there first.
- [12:37]
B
Yes. Then when we talk about the census records, that's a little bit different. The church was required to send to this central government agency, and this lasted 1880. And some of those records are actually on the National Swedish archives site, but 1880-1890-1900-1910 and 1930. So it was a list that the minister sent of everybody living in the parish to a central government agency. And then after that, these other ones are sort of combined with the tax records, you know, 1940, going forward. But then there's additional tax records too, that go back prior, when the household records may have been destroyed, or they don't go that far back in time. Then you go and look at these older tax records, which don't have as much information, but can be helpful in some times.
- [13:30]
A
And this conversation is reminding me how important it is to understand the different record groups and why they were created and what information they had, because it's going to differ from place to place, and that they all kind of talk to each other in some ways. Household examination book links you out to the birth record and the other details there imply or convey information that you can look up elsewhere.
- [13:58]
B
Yeah. And also the household examination record might say, oh, he was a soldier. Then you can go to the military records, or it May say, you know, he was in prison for stealing for two years. Then you have. You can go to the prison records and find out more information and then go to court records. So, I mean, the household examination books, the church books, are really the starting point for the research within Sweden.
- [14:23]
A
And those are included in Archiv. Digital has those as part of their church records.
- [14:28]
B
Yes, yes. Archive Digital has all. They have all of the birth, marriage, death, household records, moving in and moving out records from the beginning when they were recorded, up until like the 1950s. Now, some of the household records were not preserved as long as the birth, marriage and death records. The birth merge and death records. Most of them begin in the late mid or late 1600s. Household records, usually 1700s and then some areas that may not be until 1800 that they were preserved. But we have everything that has been preserved.
- [15:05]
A
Great. You mentioned that indexing has made a big change in how people do research. Another technology that everyone's talking about now is artificial intelligence. How is Archive Digital using AI and how has it changed what you can offer users?
- [15:22]
B
Okay, we have just. This was last August, we introduced machine transcribed text. And we are actually. And we're starting off with court books because those are more narratives. So these are some of the district court records, city court records also. So what you do is you go in there and then you do a search and you put in a name or a place name. And on our website, we've got some hints as to some terms that you should use. You need to use Swedish terms when you're doing the searching, and then it will come up with a transcription and you do see the original record and then you also see the transcribed text, and that is in Swedish. So if you don't know Swedish, what you have to do is you can copy it into your computer and then take it into Google Gemini or another AI tool. And it's. I would say I've been giving some. Several presentations on the transcribed and I've used different case studies. It is really opening up a new world of Swedish history because there were a lot of disputes, you know, people. Maybe there was cow that was stolen or there was one. One of the presentations, I. One case study is about a marital agreement in 1790, a premarital agreement. It was a widow who was marrying a widower, but she was a wealthy widow and she was not going to give any of her assets away to him. Yep. So, you know, it's interesting, you know, you don't think of that in 1790 and also sometimes the unknown father, you're looking in the church books and it says the father is unknown because the mother wasn't married.
- [17:08]
A
And category of records is opened up now.
- [17:11]
B
Yes, I think it's really an opportunity to get, you know, really find out. The AI is really opening up a whole new world.
- [17:22]
A
It's not unlike what FamilySearch is doing with its full text search on their own massive library of microfilm. And yeah, what a game changer that technology has been and that Archive Digital is using it as well. And I saw too that you've been sharing updates about new collections as they're run through this program in a blog.
- [17:45]
B
Yes, we do that and we do that periodically. The last one was two or three weeks ago. So right now this is a summer holiday, so a lot of people are on holiday. So that will speed up beginning August and September. Again,
- [18:02]
A
I know Archive Digital is a subscription site, but what can users do for free?
- [18:07]
B
Okay, if you don't have a subscription, if you've never used the service and never registered with us before, you can actually get seven days free. You just go in and just put in your email and then you'll be sent a link and then you can see it and no credit card is required. And then after that you'll probably get an email offering you a year where you pay every month, and then you'll get one extra month, but you don't have to take that offer. But then on the site, when you don't have a subscription, you do have access to two parishes. One is Rucka in Kristianstad in Skne, southern Sweden. Another one is Elspaka in Varmland. So if you have an ancestor from either one of those parishes, you can research forever. And then also you have access to the 1950 census, not to the image of the original record, but to the index record.
- [19:06]
A
And that's helpful for getting a sense, even if you don't have ancestors in that census or ancestors from those two particular towns, what's the user interface like? And you can get a feel for how the site works?
- [19:20]
B
Yes, that's correct.
- [19:22]
A
Well, I appreciate you stopping by. It sounds like you have built a really useful website for Swedish genealogists. And it's encouraging to see that we are starting to get these resources not just at the family searches, but also about specific countries and ethnicities for people who are interested in that area of history.
- [19:46]
B
And I would like to point out one other thing, is that Archivedigital is available at the FamilySearch library in Salt Lake City. And at most Family Search centers throughout North America.
- [19:57]
A
That's great. Yeah. That way people can hop in there, do the research, and if they like what they see, they can always subscribe for themselves. Right. All right. Well, it was nice catching up with you, Kathy, and best of luck in your client research.
- [20:17]
B
All right. And thank you very much for inviting me.
- [20:20]
A
Thanks for joining me in this month's episode of the Family Tree Magazine podcast. You can find the show notes from this episode and all episodes@familytreemagazine.com podcasts while on our website. You can also sign up for our free email newsletter where you'll receive free genealogy resources each weekday, including links to new podcast episodes as they're released. Until next time, have fun climbing your Family tree.