Quite frankly, Mills *and* the NGS are very American-British oriented -
They just don't apply very well when it comes to research in Scandinavia
(or other countries). Sweden in the 19th century had much better
records than you can find in North America. And these church records
*are* the official records, for births, marriages, and deaths. How
complete they are varies with the locality and how far back, but when
the Clerical Survey (yearly census) for a family gives an exact
birthplace and date for each parent, and you find a birth record for one
of them which matches *exactly*, then you *have* found their birth
record and their parents. To 99.9% probability, excluding variations in
spelling of names. The dates in the survey records were kept by the
church, not given by the individual as in U.S. or Canadian Censuses, and
although I've seen copying errors, they are pretty rare.
These *are* the primary records (or microfilm thereof), and when the
birth date is before the Clerical Surveys started being recorded, it may
well be the *only* record which exists and ties parents directly to
children.
Ruth Ann
Cafi Cohen wrote:
>
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