In January I received the biggest surprise of my life. Now you get to hear all about my trip to Sweden to learn more about my family history in this interview with my husband Steve. This super-sized episode features our tips for planning a vacation that includes genealogy research, the serendipitous moments that led to our biggest discoveries, and the lessons learned from being out of the country when a pandemic is declared.
Links Mentioned
- SYW029 – Our Family History
- SilverFast scanning software
- Our (incomplete) StoryMap for the trip
- Ancestry.com
- Family Search
- Riksarkivet
- ArkivDigital
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Hi Jennifer, this was a most interesting podcast for me! My great-grandmother Emma Johnson also came from Sweden with her family, although my knowledge of exactly when and how is still a work in progress. U.S. census data gives different dates of arrival, the women themselves were naturalized through marriage (so no naturalization papers or applications for them) and the male relatives have (so far) been difficult to track down. But it is my dream to someday go to where my ancestors came from – my Swedish ancestors, as well as my German and English ancestors!
I am fascinated particularly by the StoryMap concept and intend to do some more research into this and how it can help tell my family’s story.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences!
I just listened to this podcast. My husband and I were in Kiruna, Sweden at the exact same time for a dogsledding expedition. Our trip home was also affected by the pandemic and we missed 5 flights as we were returning on March 14th. . If we couldn’t have been able to come home, we would have been happy to be stuck in Sweden!
Oh no, I’m sorry you had such a tough time getting home. That was probably the worst day to travel! I have to know, were you able to see the Northern Lights? We talked about taking a flight up there.
State-side, Alaska and even if you can get to the north shore of MN, north of duluth, you can catch the Northern lights.
I wish they were something a little more predictable that you could plan travel around, especially in the lower 48.
My husband was an exchange student to Sweden many years ago. And he is Swedish on his paternal grandmother’s side. Anyway, we took a trip to Sweden back in 1997 to meet up with his exchange family who were all still alive. They lived on a farm outside of Revinge/aka Revingeby. We had taken the hydrofoil from Copenhagen to Malmo, then rented a car there to take us to the family home. So many fond memories of the hospitality everywhere and lovely places we visited. Everyone wanted us over for a meal, everyone wanted to take us to their favorite locations, places a normal tourist would often never experience. Lund, Flyinge, Båstad, Svenstorp Slott, Hörte, Ystad – some of the places we went, along the western coast as well as the southern coast of Skåne. Thank you for sharing your adventure, it made me smile.