Records for 1900-1947

[Mark Hoenig]

There seems to be a gap in resources available between the wealth of information on the 19th century, and the 1970 census and 1947-2007 Death Index.  Are there any resources available for the early twentieth century?
 
For example, I am interested in knowing about the children, if any, of Johan Gustav Ekelund, (Apr 29 1891 - Jul 22 1975) and Karin Maria Lind  (Jan 23 1893 - Jun 25, 1979), who married in Växjö, Småland on Oct 10, 1914.
 
From the 1970 census, there seem to be a few Ekelunds born around that time, including Frans Yngve Ekelund (Aug 13, 1921) who might be there offspring.  (Frans was Johan Gustav's Fathers name, and seems to be uncommon in Sweden).   How can I find out about these people, without travelling to Sweden, and without imposing too much on other people?

[Anna-Carin Betzén]

The National Archives have a subscription-based service providing online access to scanned images of church records (it's not completed yet, but will eventually cover all volumes older than 85 years before present).  
 
In addition, through that service you can access extracts from the birth, marriage and death records (submitted yearly since 1860 to Central Bureau of Statistics) up to 70 years before present. These records cover the basic information of who, where, and when, but not extras like christening witnesses etc. One year's worth of records from one county is bound in one or two volumes, often around 1000 pages each, and usually not indexed by parish so you need to leaf it through to locate your parish (the parishes often seem to be grouped by kontrakt (a geographical clerical unit at a level between parish and diocese), and then the kontrakt are grouped by diocese, but sometimes there doesn't seem to be any system to it at all). Often the order of the parishes seems to be the same from year to year, so you can guesstimate where to look in next year's volume.  
 
There's also a 1930s census, scanned but not indexed (neither on parish nor individual level).
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av acb den 11 september, 2008)

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

Mark, as you have the death dates for Johan Gustaf Ekelund and his wife, you can request a copy of their estate inventories (bouppteckningar) from the appropriate Regional Archives (Landsarkiv) for the area where they died. You can probably figure out the right one from the web site www.ra.se (National Archives).  
 
In the estate inventory you will find a list of the heirs, and their addresses at the time of death for the parents.

[Mark Hoenig]

Anna-Carin, thank you very much!   I  do have a subscription to SVAR, and I have been using it for the past few weeks, but I did not realize that it had links to the modern data - there isn't a link to it in the English section.  I found the birth index for 1921, and my guess that Frans Yngve was Johan Gustav's son was correct!  Thank you again.
 
I was familiar with the technique of finding farms or lands by looking for them in the same place as in previous volumes from looking at the Husförhörslängder.  The first time I found a Church record with an index, I was chagrinned, thinking that these were common and I had wasted a lot of time by not noticing them before.  Then I was chagrinned again to find they weren't all that common, and I would have to go back to my old techniques of guestimating or just slogging through looking for birthdates.  (I find them easier to pick out than names, depending on the handwriting of the clergyman).
 
Incidently, the handwriting in the Växjö Stad portion of the 1921 Kronobergs Fodelsbok is some of the most beautiful I have encountered in my journeys through the scanned writing.
 
Elisabeth, thank you for the tip about the bouppteckningar, I think that will be very helpful in finding out some information on my morfar's mor side of the family.

[Mark Hoenig]

I just realized I should be using SVAR's farm and village database to find particular farms in the Husförhörslängder, once I have located the farm I am interested in...