Household Examination Records (Husförhörslängder) for Swedish Genealogy
If you are attempting to trace your Swedish ancestors back to their homes in Sweden, there is one particular record set that you will need to know. Husförhörslängder.
(Hey, I said you’ll need to know it, not know how to say it).
Think of Husförhörslängder, or Swedish Household Examination Records, as the equivalent of a Swedish census, but taken by the church.
They are the most important record set in Sweden and date all the way back to the late 17th century. If you have ancestry in Sweden, this is the record set you will need to know how to master.
So what type of information exactly is there in the Household Examination Records? Here’s a snippet:
Names of everyone in the household
Exact birth dates (down to the day and month!)
Specific location of where the family lived
Exact date the family or individuals arrived in or left the parish or specific locality
Marriage dates
Death dates
Military history
Catechism knowledge scores
And more!
The Household Examination Records (and Swedish record keeping in general) are great for a few specific reasons:
Dates are very specific, and they rarely differ. In US censuses you may find one year John’s birth date is 1858; in the next census, it’s 1861. No one seemed to have a clue when they were born, nor did they care. Swedish record keeping, on the other hand, recorded the year, month, and exact date of births and deaths, and these exact dates tend to stay the same throughout multiple Examination Records. Dates for moving in and moving out of the parish were also recorded, and are very specific; so specific, in fact, that I found out one of my family members only remained on a farm for precisely 19 days in October of 1877 before moving again.
It is extremely easy to trace your family back hundreds of years, and quickly. When a person or family moved into a parish or village, the Examination Records referenced where they moved from; if they moved villages within the same parish, the record will reference the exact page number. And the same goes for when an individual or family moved out. You can quickly and easily trace your ancestor in the Husförhörslängder back and back and back until you find them as a child living with their parents - and then you can trace the parents back and back and back, and so on.
Locations are specific. Being the geographic genealogist I am, there is nothing I love more in this world than a precise location listed in a record. Give me all the addresses! I particularly love mapping out the lives of my ancestors and the Household Examination Records make it so easy to do that. They give the county, parish, rote, and village where the family lived, allowing you to map out all the places your Swedish ancestors lived throughout their lives.
You can search the Household Examination Records for a fee at ArkivDigital, the largest private provider of Swedish records (like the Ancestry.com of Sweden), or for completely free at RiksArkivet.se, the National Archives of Sweden.
If you’ve been putting off researching your Swedish family because you are wary of conquering a new language and record set, have no fear! I have blog posts and videos to help you navigate the Husförhörslängder.
Related Content
➡️ Understanding Swedish Land Divisions for Genealogy
➡️ How to Read Household Examination Records for Swedish Genealogy
More to come!