Wednesday Wisdom on a Thursday
Hey friends! Here’s a checklist for what to do when researching your Scandinavian ancestor.
Keep this checklist handy to refer back to when you need to know the next step or to refresh your memory. Good luck!
1. Gather all that you know from family and friends.
2. Organize what you have and search everything from Bibles to newspaper articles to photos to stories.
3. Find out if someone else has done the “legwork” for you by searching pedigree charts for your ancestor. Do not take this information as correct until you see the original record. Either they will have it on their pedigree chart or you may have to find it yourself.
4. Fill in the missing American records first. For example, you may have a birth date but you don’t have a marriage date or a death date. Search first Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org for the missing records including all census records. Then broaden your search to state archives, findagrave.com, Google, and military records.
5. Find immigration records through Ellisisland.org, Ancestry.com, and FamilySearch.org. Immigration records will tell you the place name in the original country and the closest friend or relative.
6. Learn all you can about that place in the original country. Familsearch.org/wiki is a great place to learn about the original country. It will tell you how to search for records in the original country, common genealogical words to know in that language, how and when records were kept, and maps of the original country. It’s a great place to start.
7. Learn the websites that store the original records in the original country. For example Norway’s records are mostly at digitalarkivet.no. Usually these sites have a help section, blog, or videos that will walk you through the process of finding your ancestor. I will also continue to put these step-by-step articles on my blog for future reference.
8. Continue to fill in the missing Scandinavian records. This will give you more practice at reading the language and finding your ancestors faster.
9. Find all of the records for one family first before moving onto the next generation. This helps you stay organized and not miss anyone in the family by jumping from one generation to the next. This also applies to the American records as well as the Scandinavian ones.
Now some researchers find all of the family up to the children’s birth records before moving on to the grandparents. Other researchers continue on to find the children’s marriage records and their children before stopping to search for the grandparents. It’s up to you what feels best in your season of life.
10. Source all of the original records that you find. Make sure you get a copy of the record image and write down on the image exactly where you found it. This helps when you have to find that record again. It also shows that the information you have collected is accurate and reliable.
That’s it in a nutshell! If you see this list and get excited about finding your ancestors, then go for it. I really hope your journey is easy and fruitful. If you don’t want to do it or you feel overwhelmed, then let me help and we can do it together.
Good luck and happy hunting!
Tiffany