Recommondation for birth record searchs

LegacyUser

Shane Dusty Johnson said: When searching for birth records, this hits are coming back on the fathers name not the children's. In my case, and I can't believe I am alone in this, priority should be given to the children's name as I am working backwards from present time through history to try and make these connections. Especially in cultures like Sweden where surnames were not a family name but a delineation of who their father was ie Johnnson was Jons son.
Thank you for your work and the great tool we have, but I think this would help immensely.

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: Could you share an example? Also know that people are going forwards in time from their ancestors, too.

LegacyUser

Shane Dusty Johnson said: Yes I am aware of the forward and reverse searches. Could you please let me know what information you would need for the example?

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: A screenshot of the search would be good--with all the search details shown, so I, and others, can duplicate the search and understand it better. Also, a link to the profile in question.

LegacyUser

Shane Dusty Johnson said:

Here is the screenshot. I am searching for Olof in Swedish birth records. I have a date fairly consistent with Feb. 1846. (Sadly no exact date) and no record of parents. In my research, I have read that at this time the surname was commonly the fathers name with son or daughter suffixed. When I did my search all ~6000 returned with Olof as the father with no hits on the childs name. I have so far only searched on the Swedish Baptisms collection.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Recently there was an update to many of the Scandinavian record sets to get the index back to having only the information that was in the original record. For most of the older parish records, this means the children no longer have surnames because those parish records did not contain any surname for the child. This means that you cannot include a last name for a child and expect to have any correct matches!

Your example shows that you are searching for an Olof Johnson born 1844 to 1848 in Sweden.

Instead, you need to search for Olof, born 1844 to 1848 in Sweden with father John. That will give you these results (click on the image to enlarge it):

https://www.familysearch.org/search/r...



This is the only way to get the types of results you are looking for. All of these Olof's would have been known as Olof Johnson under the patronymic naming system.

(Unfortunately, I doubt that this search will help you much. Olof and John are such common names that unless you can find more information about Olof, looking at random birth records is not going to lead you to him. The most valuable sources are the clerical surveys which generally are quite easy to use in the late 1800's. What else do you know about him? Where is he in Family Tree? I might be able to help you find him in one of these records and guide you back to his birth.)

LegacyUser

Shane Dusty Johnson said: Gordon, Thank you for the correction. I was not aware of this behavior from the search engine and the data. In all honesty, I feel like a fish out of water with all of this and I work in tech.
Unfortunately, I have only limited information from mostly US Census records and from Death Certificates. I have found his Wife's family, but his is a dead end.
His record number is L24V-9T2. He is my Great Great Grandfather who immigrated in 1868. I have no immigration record just a date from a census. His parents were never listed on any of the documents I have been able to find. No city he immigrated from or birth city.
I appreciate any help you might be able to afford.

Shane

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Is there any chance Olof and Eva Sophia were married before they emigrated? I see that you have the same emigration year for both of them.

Let's first confirm you have the right Eva Sophia since you have a christening date and family for her.

Starting at this set of scanned parish registers for Varnum in Varmland:
https://sok.riksarkivet.se/kyrkoarkiv...

Here is the birth and christening record for the Eva Sophia born 21 July 1841 and christened on 22 July 1841 in Varnum parish:
https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisnin...

She was also born at Spjutsbäcken. The cerical survey page for this family at the time of her birth fortunately has an index of the farms and the family can be found here:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

If this is the first time you have seen one of these, don't get overwhelmed. Just take some time to look at the names and birth dates, and get a general sense of how this all fits together. Notice that the parents are listed first, then all the sons then all the daughter. After Eva Sophia are a few workers on the farm.

After the birth dates, is listed everyone's birth parish. They were all born in Varnum parish except for the father who was born in Tösse parish. His birthplace as current listed in Family Tree is wrong. It should be Tösse, Varmland, Sweden. All the rest of the information is just when then took part in church services.

But now you can follow this family forward to the next survey which covers 1846 to 1850:

Again you are in luck that this volume also has an index:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

So you can get to the correct farm quickly:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

No events listed for Eva Sophia so now it is on to the 1851 to 1855 book (is is good to add all these as sources, by the way.)
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

Here all the birth dates are crossed out. If a person is crossed out this way, this means either a move or a death. Since the entire family is crossed out, most certainly this was a move. And if you look at the next to last column, you will see 574 52 (or 53, I'm not sure about the last digit.) This means they moved to page 574 in this same book in 1852 or 1853. Note that the page numbers are not the same as the image numbers for the scanned item.

Which is here:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

The top of this page does not list a farm, but the previous page has the heading "Utan stadigt ?? i Niklandams Rote." "Without steady ?? in Niklandans neighborhood." I'm not sure what this means and it might make it harder to continue on. It might mean they moved into a town and didn't have a set address.

No other events for Eva, so on to give 1856 - 1860 a try. Ther… [truncated]

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Here is Eva Sophia after she moved, now living at Wassgården:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

In 1857 she moved to page 139:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

then it is written that she moved back to page 138 but I don't see her re-recorded there, maybe because this is at the end of the volume. So on to 1861 to 1865.

This index for this volume is interesting because it show how the parish was subdivided into Rote:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

Here is Eva Sophia:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

Again crossed out with the notation 588 December 3, 1861. Here is her next place:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

This is getting ridiculous. Three days later she moved again. The notation says St. 191. I hope this is the same book and not a different parish.

Poking around, I've found a bit of a challenge. In the Move In/ Move Out records for 1861 there is this curious notation and the end of the year: 138 - 248 See Stadens Move in List. So in December 1861 there was some sort of boundary change and 110 or so people were "moved" from Varnum records to Stadens, maybe Studens records:
https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisnin...

But I'm having trouble figuring out what that new parish really is.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: I threw a question onto the Nordic Research community which is a great place to get help:

https://community.familysearch.org/s/...

LegacyUser

Shane Dusty Johnson said: What you have provided is amazing. I never would have known about all of this. I'm going to follow and link it to her this week and see what I can dig up. I also appreciate you throwing to over to the Nordic Research Community. I will follow that one as well to see where it leads.
Thank you so much for your help.

Shane

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: The main thing is just knowing the records are there. You may want to put together what you know about Olof and post something to the Nordic group to see if anyone there has any suggestions about finding out more about him. The majority of people on that board are doing Swedish research. Both my wife and I have small branches of Swedish ancestors so I've done some research there but there is more I don't know than I do. The jump you have to go from Olof in the US to Olof in Sweden is a difficult challenge.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Aha! I kept googling and found that Varnum was also known Kristinehamns Landsförsamling (rural parish). That means that Kristinehamns must have been the corresponding city parish and there I found Eva Sophia right on page 191 where she was supposed to be:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

Moved to page 249 in 1862:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

Moved back to Varnum in 1865 where she is now living at Lassegård:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

where she says though the end of this book. Hope she is in the same place at the start of the next volume which covers 1866 to 1870 and should contain her emigration notice. Maybe if you are really lucky it also contains her marriage.

Here she is still at Lassegård, listed just as Sophia until 1867 when she moved to Visnum parish:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

Here is the record of her move out on line 69 on the right hand side. https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisnin...

Here is her record of moving in to Visnum on line 122 on the left hand side which states that she moved to Björneberg farm:
https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisnin...

So now on to there. Fortunately this record also has an index of farm so we can go right to Björneberg:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

There she is with the correct name, correct birth place, correct birth year. And on 7 April 1868 she leaves for North America. Still single.

Here is her moving out record. Line 5 on the right hand page:
https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisnin...

Seeing all these records and the exact match you have with her birth date, maiden name, and immigration year. I am fully satisfied that you do have the right match between Eva Sophie Walstrom in Sweden and in the United States.

It's too bad there does not appear to be anything in her life in Sweden that connected her to an Olof Johnson. So he could be from anywhere in Sweden. Sorry I don't have any ideas for you as to what to do about that.

The main reason I think Swedish research really is quite fun is that if you hit a good set of these clerical surveys, you can follow people through their entire life. The information in the surveys shows you exactly where to look in the birth, marriage and death records to flesh out the information on the people and the birth, marriage and death records can point back to the clerical surveys if you can't find where someone moved. And now that the Swedish archives give full access to all the scanned microfilms for free, you can see images that Family Search either does not have or can't give access to. The main page to start looking for parish records is at:
https://sok.riksarkiv… [truncated]

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Trying to think of anything that might give a clue to Olof, I took a look at the Michigan birth records.

I'd be pretty confident this is their daughter Ellen's birth record despite the interesting entry for her mother's first name:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

It matches well with her death record.