Understanding Swedish Land Divisions for Genealogy

One of the most important favors you can do for your genealogy research is understanding the land divisions that make up the place your ancestor lived.

Think about it: how would someone go about researching in the U.S. if they didn’t understand the difference between a county and a state? 

Researching in Sweden is no different; actually, understanding land divisions in Sweden is arguably more important than understanding them in the U.S. - land is at the heart of the most important Swedish record - the Husförhörslängder, or Household Examination Books.

These books revolve around location, location, location. You need to know where your ancestor lived in order to find them in the books. In addition, because these records reference each other, sending you to different books and pages as you trace your ancestor back in time, they make it possible to map out exactly where your ancestor lived during their lifetime in Sweden. But to do this, you’re going to need a general understanding of the land terms used in the books. Here is an overview.

Län (County)

Similar to Ireland and many other European countries, the most obvious land division in Sweden is the county. Sweden is divided into 21 counties; this number, and the names of the counties, have varied over time as borders change and divide, so you may find that the county your Swedish ancestor lived in at one point no longer exists. My Swedish ancestors are from Kronoberg and Jonkoping.

Söcken (Parish)

For the purpose of genealogy, the next largest land division is the parish. It is crucial to know which parish your Swedish family lived in, because the Husförhörslängder were recorded by parish. Sometimes parish is written as församling.

Rote

When looking through the Household Examination Books you may notice the word ‘rote’ on the top of the pages. This is the next largest land division. Each parish was divided into a number of rotar (plural) which were made up of two or more farms. In the Books, the farms/villages/dwellings are listed at the heads of pages following the rote. The below image shows Qvänslöfs Rote at the top, followed by the name of a particular farm, Qvänslöf Norregård,

Image from RiksArkivet

Farms, Villages, and Other Dwellings

Finally, within each rote there were farms, villages, and other dwellings. These are listed at the top of the pages, and sometimes in the middle of the page (they may be underlined in order to stand out). These may be further divided, often by directional (northern, eastern, western, southern) such as the image above.

Some of these place names may give further clues as to who your ancestors were. For example, below is an image of my 4th great grandfather living in “Grenadiertorpet” in Eka Rote, Ljungby Parish, Kronobergs län. With torp meaning croft and torpet being the definitive form, Grenadiertorpet would translate to “The Grenadier Croft”; similarly, you may see “soldattorp” (soldier croft) or other words indicating a military relationship. These were allotted to military men and their families. If you find an ancestor living in a torp with a military word prefix, this would be an indication that you would want to look into their military history.

Related Content

Check back soon for more Swedish genealogy resources!