Online Workshop Helps With Discovery of Swedish Heritage

Digging into one’s genealogy can be like solving a mystery. Fortunately, a workshop in October can connect those interested in their Swedish roots with a few Sherlocks.

Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum hosts a Swedish Virtual Genealogy Workshop with ArkivDigital four times per year, and the next opportunity will be 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Saturday, October 22.

According to the organization, Lenora Lynam, Executive Director of the museum, organizes the workshops and said she is excited about what the presenters in October will have to share.

“The resources attendees will learn about at the workshop are incredibly valuable, but often hard to find on your own, or difficult to navigate,” she said. “Many of the sources are mostly in Swedish! Our featured speakers are experts in these fields and can help guide people to learn so much more about their family history.”

Sessions will include learning how to research in Swedish-American church record books, looking up Swedish military records with new and better search tools, and understanding the U.S. naturalization process and the paper trails of family history left by that process.

Other sessions will help attendees discover additional research options when there are few available records and an introduction to DIS – a nonprofit dedicated to facilitating computer searches in genealogical research – and its digital database, DISBYT, that contains a wealth of Swedish genealogical information.

Three featured speakers will lead the sessions:

  • Seema Kenney is an experienced software instructor and a professional genealogist, certified in Genealogical Research by Boston University.
  • Kathy Meade is the North American representative for ArkivDigital AD AB (offering digital images of Swedish historical records) and has worked in Swedish genealogy for about 20 years. She serves on the advisory board for the Swedish American Genealogy Research Center at the Swedish American Museum in Chicago and volunteers helping with genealogical research at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library in Illinois.
  • Eva Dahlberg is with Skåne and Norrbotten Research and is vice president of DIS computer genealogy society in Sweden.

Full details and a link to register are available at www.oldmillmuseum.org/events/#genealogy. Registration is just $50, but is limited to 100 attendees.