Despite the fact that I haven’t posted any new blogs over the past year, I’ve accomplished quite a book on my book on my great-great-grandfather’s Swedish ancestors. During the first half of this year, I completed work on the fourth and fifth chapters of my book, which I uploaded to this website earlier this fall. The first five chapters of my book are now available to read on this website, offering nearly 800 pages worth of content on five generations.

Over the past six months, I have been working on the six and seventh chapters of my book, which describe the lives my great-great-grandfather Gustaf High’s 17th century ancestors. This has been an incredibly challenging but rewarding task, as records from this time are both difficult to find and decipher. Fortunately, I’ve met a lot of wonderful and very knowledgeable people over the course of my research whom have been very helpful to me. I wouldn’t have been able to make it this far without them.

The sixth chapter of my book is about the 3rd great-grandparents of Sven Hög and Anna Stina Johansdotter, the patriarch and matriarch of the High family, and contains information on 7 sets of ancestors. I am almost finished with this chapter, and am just waiting for several records related to Knut Persson, a 3rd great-grandfather of Sven Hög’s who served in the cavalry.

The seventh chapter of my book is about the 4th great-grandparents of Sven Hög and Anna Stina Johansdotter, the patriarch and matriarch of the High family, and contains information on 4 sets of ancestors. My favorite file (as well as the longest one) in this chapter is about Per Jacobsson, a 4th great-grandfather of Sven Hög’s who was a lieutenant in Småland’s Cavalry. This file will be the second longest file in my book and will be around 70 pages. In addition to including a variety of hard-to-find records (such as landscape documents, court records, military rolls, and church archive records), this file will give an in-depth look at the Thirty Years War, one of the most horrendous times in European history, that Per Jacobsson served in during the 1630s and early 1640s.

Both the sixth and seventh chapters of my book will be well over 100 pages. Hopefully, I’ll upload them sometime in February, depending on how long it takes to transcribe and translate all of their records. After I finish writing the seventh chapter, my book will be over 1000 pages.

Over the course of the coming winter and spring, I plan on working on the eight chapter of my book, which till tentatively be about the 15th and 16th century ancestors of Sven Hög. In June of this year, I subscribed to Riksarkivet (Sweden’s National Archives), which contains a lot of older records that aren’t found on Arkiv Digital (the service I’ve used the past 5 years). In October, I started finding records from the 16th century that mention my ancestors. While it’s one thing to see the names of ancestors that you are supposedly related to on ancestry.com or other genealogy sites, it’s incredible to actually see the records of these ancestors and find evidence that they really were related to you!

As many people know, one of the greatest pitfalls of on ancestry.com or other genealogy sites is they are filled with false information and can frequently list people without the sources to prove the relation. I admit, I’ve been bad about this myself, but I do plan on updating my information on ancestry.com in the near future to reflect my research.
I’m hopeful that the latter chapters of my book will be insightful and inspirational to anyone with an interest in Swedish genealogy. I’ve noticed that most Swedish genealogists stop tracking their ancestors around the 17th century, as it is very difficult to conduct research beyond this point. Hopefully these chapters will be helpful to them, as they will include dozens of old records with transcriptions and translations, as well as short descriptions of all of the types of sources they were found.

At the beginning of every year, I wonder to myself, “Will this be the year that I finally finish my book?” While it’s hard to say for certain if 2017 will be that year, a lot of exciting things are in store for the coming year. Currently, my family line can be traced to at least the late 13th century (the oldest known record is of my 20th great-grandparents from 1300) and I plan on obtaining images of numerous medieval records during the first part of 2017.

I’m confident that by the time this book is finished that it will be one of the most advanced and detailed accounts of Swedish genealogy ever written in English. I appreciate everyone’s support and continued interest in this book, and will continue to keep you updated.

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