I is for Immigration

I think the reason I enjoy genealogy and family history as much as I do is that I love history and geography. I also enjoy reading, researching and puzzles. All that comes in handy with genealogy, especially when your ancestors are the more recent arrivals to Canada and the United States (late 1800s and early 1900s). With Irish, Norwegian, Slovenian and Swedish in my family tree, I get to spend quality time researching emigration and immigration records! The registers, indexes, ships' manifests, arrival documents, newspaper articles, citizenship paperwork, photographs and family stories all tell the tale of travel from the Old World to the New World.

I use both emigration and immigration events/facts with my Legacy database. One of the reasons is that it is quite easy to find emigration records for my Norwegian and Swedish ancestors. There are great church and government records that kept track of the people and many times those leaving were given copies of their church records to deliver to their new parishes/churches on arrival in the United States.

the emigration register and the immigration record

whether you use the list or the report version of the chronology report,
be sure to add all the information and then go beyond the documents

The emigration records are also known as the "leaving" records. I find it useful to find out where they left from, where they might have stopped along the way (early travel was often through England - arriving on the east coast, traveling by train to the west coast and then traveling across the Atlantic to Canada or the United States). The immigration records are also known as the "arriving" records. Depending on when and where your ancestors arrived, the records can be next to nothing or lines in a ship's manifest, images or photographs and receipts.

• Since my 3rd great grandfather left Ireland for Newfoundland, there was no immigration paperwork - due to the timing, he was a British subject so it was just considered travel from one part of the British Empire to another.
• When my 3rd great grandmother left Ireland for the United States, she and her daughters first immigrated to Canada - the passage was cheaper and there were no financial or medical exams, again they were British subjects. I know they traveled through the Great Lakes region but have no found their papers yet!
• When my 2nd great grandparents left Sweden (in their 50s) with their grown children, they arrived in New York and knew exactly where they were going - Wright County, Minnesota - where several of their neighbors and my 3rd times great granduncle has already settled and purchased farmland. Their records leaving and arriving were easily found.
• When my 2nd great grandparents and their two young children left Norway they traveled to Canada first and months later continued on to the United States (again headed for Minnesota). Their records for leaving and arriving were a bit trickier until I found the Canadian connection. 
• When my great grandparents (individually and unbeknownst to each other) left Austria/Slovenia for the United States, they each arrived at Ellis Island (and then traveled by train across the country to Washington - enclaves of Slovenians and coal mines). Finally I got to do some Ellis Island research - I even have pictures of the ships they traveled on.
• When my grandfather immigrated to the United States from Newfoundland, he did so twice (his first arrival through Boston, Massachusetts was not done through the proper channels; his second arrival through Minot, North Dakota was his golden ticket!).
• My grandmother who was born in the United Stated, immigrated to Canada in the early 1900s with her father and her siblings (a story for another day or letter!).

Between my direct line ancestors and all the extended family, we have examples of emigration and immigration records from early on through the 1940s. Be sure to document the immigration story of your ancestors - and go behind the documents. What did the trip cost, how did they raise the funds, where did they leave from, who did they travel with, how long did the trip take, how far a distance was the trip, what was the ship or train or plane like, where did they arrive, what were their first months like, did they stay in contact with family at home, did they become citizens, did they learn the language, did they return home? Learning about their immigration story will make you even more grateful to them for making the trip! 

Tack - Takk - Hvala - & Go raibh maith agaibh to my Swedish, Norwegian, Slovenian and Irish ancestors for making the trip, changing your lives, and meeting up once you arrived - we are here because you got on those ships!

H is for Household Examination Records

Want another reason to love Sweden and Swedish family history research? How about Husförhörslängder (that's Household Examination Records for us non-Swedish speakers). Time for a short history lesson - Beginning in the 1700s, it was the responsibility of the Swedish Lutheran Church to keep track of the people (the government and the church used one and the same individuals to do this). Throughout the course of the year, things happened in every community - births and baptisms, vaccinations, confirmations, marriages, moving in and moving out of the parish, disciplinary actions, leaving Sweden for another country or perhaps another continent and, the inevitable, deaths and burials. It is all recorded in the Household Examination Records (HERs). Additionally Swedish families received annual visits by their priest to check on each person's understanding of his or her catechism and whether they received communion. This status update kept track of the people and the changes in their lives. The HERs were maintained in clerical books that are set up on a 5 or 10 year basis. 

Once you find your person, you can follow him or her backward and forward - a bit like an annual census. These HERs are great for confirming family members, learning when a person left home and where they went, and confirming deaths. Put these HERs together with maps of Sweden and the various parishes (to follow their migration) and Emibas records (to follow their emigration) to learn more about your ancestors. The HERs are a terrific resource and reading through the entries gives you a bit more insight into your ancestors, their extended family and their neighbors. 

My Swedish Research Notebook and
a copy of the HER 513.42.14900 for 1861-1865

To learn more about HERs and how to use them, check out the FamilySearch wiki and the records maintained at the Family History Library, the online records maintained by Genline (now owned byAncestry.com) or Arkiv Digital, or the National and Regional Archives in Sweden. If you have Swedish ancestors, two excellent books are Cradled in Sweden by Carl Erik Johansson (Logan: Everton Publishers, Inc. 1995) and Your Swedish Roots by Per Clemensson and Kjell Andersson (Provo: Ancestry, 2004). I attended a day long workshop through the Swedish American Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota a few years ago and it taught me the ins and outs of Swedish and Swedish American research. If you are in the area in late April, why not attend the Swedish Genealogy Workshop on April 24th taught by Dee and Ray Kleinow. At least stop by for a tour of the museum and lunch - both are amazing! 
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