24 April 2013

Swedish Church Records at Ancestry.com Are Not Full-Name Indexed

Ancestry.com includes quite a few Swedish church records as a part of their international collection. Users should be aware that (as of this writing) they are not indexed by name. There are no name boxes to use on the search interface. The index will allow you to determine what records are available for which counties and parishes. Full name searching is not currently available. 

Sweden, Church Records, 1500-1941 from Ancestry.com
A search for "Carlson" as a keyword resulted in zero hits. Any Swedish researcher worth their lutefisk would  know that name search for Carlson in a Swedish datatabase should bring back quite a few hits. 

It is worth noting that most of the older records are in loose ledger format and are not easy to read. Indexing these records is not an easy task. Most Swedish records are "cross-referenced" and are usually fairly detailed. They are not as difficult to use as some other records during this time period. 

But they are not name indexed--yet. But if you are a member of Ancestry.com, you can search them from the comfort of your home at 3:00 a.m. Just don't type Samuel Otto Johnson in the search box.