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Research
in America - Public Documents
If you have exhausted the
possibilities of finding personal papers that can aid in your search, you should
then give attention to public documents. Older papers are usually found in
archives, libraries or special genealogical collections throughout the country.
The following are the most useful:
- Passenger Manifests (view
image)
Beginning in 1820, each master bringing in a vessel to the chief ports in
the United States was required on oath to divulge the names of his
passengers, their gender, age, occupation, country of nativity and
destination. The original passenger manifests were kept at the port of entry
for many years, but are now housed in either the National Archives in
Washington, D.C., or the Balch Institute in Philadelphia. The ship passenger
list index for immigrants from Scandinavia is part of an ongoing project at
the Temple-Balch Center for Immigration Research and, therefore, not yet
available. Nonetheless, most of the original passenger manifests have been
microfilmed and are available in the National Archives, the Family History
Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City
or any Family History Center associated with a local Mormon church.
Researchers interested in early Swedish arrivals in U.S. ports are fortunate
to have at their disposal the seminal work, Swedish Passenger Arrivals in
the United States 1820-1850 (Stockholm 1995), written by Nils William Olsson
and Erik Wiken. This valuable reference provides a comprehensive view of the
more than 5,000 Swedish passengers who arrived in the United States during
this early migration period. More about Immigration
records...
- U.S. Census Records
The federal censuses (population schedules) for the years 1850, 1860, 1870,
1880, 1900, 1910 and 1920 are available on microfilm. The 1890 census was
destroyed by fire. It is possible to consult these in the National Archives
in Washington D.C., the Family History Centers from the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints or in many public libraries, state historical
societies and larger genealogical collections. More
about U.S. census records...
- U.S. Naturalization Records
Registers listing foreigners who either took out intentions of
becoming U.S. citizens or who finally received their naturalization papers
are not to be found in a central depository. They are scattered throughout
the country in the municipal district and federal courts. They often give
valuable information about an individual's birthplace, date of arrival in
the United States and the name of the vessel on which the individual
arrived. The naturalization records for the New England states are now
available in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. More
about U.S. naturalization records...
- Vital Statistics
While the registration of births, marriages and deaths shows a great
unevenness throughout the country - some communities having waited until the
beginning of the twentieth century before recording vital statistics - there
are a number of communities that have records going back to the nineteenth
century. Death certificates can be very important, since they often give
birth date and birthplace, as well as next-of-kin. These records are to be
found in local city halls or county courthouses. In some states, the records
have been centralized in the state capital. More
about vital records...
- Military
Records
The National Archives in Washington D.C. has an excellent collection of
military records going back to the Revolutionary War. For determining the
country of origin, however, one cannot get much information prior to the
Civil War. Beginning with this conflict, the records are more specific as to
date of birth and often place of birth. The pension records housed in the
National Archives are also an excellent source. More
about military records...
- Land Records
With the opening of the western lands through the establishment of the
Homestead Act in 1862, it became possible for immigrants to purchase land
inexpensively from the federal government. The records of these transactions
may sometimes help in determining the early years of the immigrant's life.
It is necessary, however, to have a complete description of the land. The
Land Record Office in the National Archives in Washington D.C. has many
records that can be helpful. Otherwise, it is best to go t the Registrar of
Deeds in the local county courthouse. More about land
records...
- Church Records
Contrary to the practice in Sweden, where the clergy of the established
Lutheran Church were required to keep vital statistics of parishioners, the
American churches, being disestablished, have never been obliged to keep
records of their church members or their vital statistics. However, many
churches did; and, if the church to which the immigrant belonged is known,
it is quite often possible to get the information from these church books.
This is particularly true of the Augustana Lutheran Church (formerly an
independent synod; now part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America) which, as the daughter church of the Lutheran Church in
Sweden, often accepted at full value the flyttningsbevis as the
official record of transfer from the Old World to the New.
Most Augustana Lutheran churches, as well as many other immigrant
congregations in such denominations as the Evangelical Covenant, Evangelical
Free, Methodist, Baptist and a few Episcopal churches, kept fairly good
membership records. In the Augustana churches, the tradition was kept more
conscientiously and it is often possible to find the parish of birth in
Sweden, the date of birth, as well as the date of arrival in the United
States. An eleven-year project designed to microfilm Swedish-American
church archives, which was sponsored by the Wallenberg Foundation and
carried out by the Swedish Emigrant Institute in Växjö, Sweden, resulted
in 1,651 rolls of microfilm representing 1,710 Swedish-American parishes.
Complete sets of these microfilms, as well as indexes organized by state,
name of community and name of parish(es) in that community, are available
for researchers at the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center,
Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, and the Swedish Emigrant Institute
(Svenska Emigrantinstitutet), Växjö, Sweden.
- Swedish-American Newspapers
Swedish immigrants in the United States were zealous newspaper readers who
longed for news from the old country as well as stories about Swedish
immigrants in the New World. Hundreds of Swedish-American newspapers were
published from coast to coast for shorter or longer periods. Columns of
these newspapers were often devoted to personal notices - primarily
marriages, deaths and birthdays. Often these files can give vital
information about generations now long since gone. Files of these newspapers
can be found in many public libraries, particularly the Library of Congress,
the New York Public Library, the University of Chicago Library, the
University of Illinois Library, the Augustana College Library and the
Minnesota Historical Society Library. In Sweden, the Royal Library (Kungliga
Biblioteket) in Stockholm has one of the largest extant collections of
Swedish-American newspapers. A project sponsored by Augustana College in
Rock Island, Illinois, and the Royal Library in Stockholm has, to date,
resulted in the microfilming of 236 Swedish-American newspapers published in
North America. Over 1,500 rolls of microfilm are currently accessible to
researchers either at the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center,
Augustana College, or through inter-library loan.
- City Directories
City directories, published by cities and towns throughout the United
States, can be of great help in locating missing relatives. Although they
have a distinct value, they must be used with caution, since they are a
secondary source and sometimes carelessly edited. General collections of
U.S. city directories and telephone catalogues are to be found in the
Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Each city or town library, however,
usually maintains a fairly complete set of the directories of its own
community.
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Images © 2000 Kimberly Powell. All Rights Reserved.
Article reprinted with the kind permission of the Swedish Information Service.
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