In English
Click here for municipalities and parishes in Kronoberg County.
Kronoberg’s Genealogical Association, KGF, founded in September 1982 in Växjö, is a nonprofit association whose purpose is to promote genealogical research in Kronoberg county. KGF is a member of The Federation of Swedish Genealogical Societies.
KGF’s Activities
KGF has an extensive program of activities related to genealogical research. We regularly conduct courses, lectures, site visits and excursions related to cultural history in the region. Four times a year, we produce a Swedish-language magazine on genealogical research, KGF-Nytt (The KGF-News), which is distributed to members overseas by e-mail (as a PDF file). An important task is the development and maintenance of KGF’s Database, which contains information on births, marriages and deaths in the population in the almost 100 parishes in Kronoberg County.
Membership
KGF has almost 1,650 members. If you wish to become a member of our association, please complete the form on the right. The membership fee is 20 USD per year. As a member, you can buy KGFs Database (see below) and you will receive our magazine. Payment of the membership fee can be made through PayPal, KGFs account: ola.hellner@gmail.com
A little Swedish history about our church record books. As might be expected, The National Church of Sweden (Lutheran), has for centuries been responsible for leading the religious activities of the country. Perhaps less expected is the fact that, for more than four centuries, the church also had the responsibility of maintaining the national population register for the total Swedish population. The church’s record books thus represent a “gold mine” for genealogical research. The oldest Swedish church record books were produced in the beginning of the 1600’s, at which time Sweden’s Archbishop began encouraging his clergymen to keep records of events taking place in the church like child baptisms, engagements to marry, weddings and funerals. In 1686, nation-wide rules were established requiring the church to keep record books concerning the population.
In addition to recording these church events, the clergymen in Sweden’s national church were also required to conduct formal household examinations (“husförhör”) in each household in every town and village in their parish, in order to collect information on the residents and test the residents’ knowledge of the Bible.
The records of these household examinations are a rich source of information not only about the names of the farms and other residences but also about the names of the people who resided there, their date and place of birth, moves into and out of the residence, marriages, deaths, Biblical knowledge, vaccination for small pox, etc. Such household examinations were conducted well into modern time, and the church record books for these home visits thus represent an invaluable complement to the other church records for use in genealogical research.
At the end of the 1940’s, a large contribution was made to Swedish genealogical information by Mormons who microfilmed Swedish church archives, as part of a religious mission to identify their relatives all over the world. Approximately 100 million pages were filmed, this filling 60 000 micro-film rolls. The Swedish government received a copy of all of these films, in appreciation for allowing the Mormons to access this information.
KGFs Database 2016
KGF used these microfilms to obtain information from the church books, in order to create KGF’s Database. Subsequently, we have used internet-based programs such as Arkiv Digital (Archives Digital) and Riksarkivet, SVAR (The National Archive). The first KGF Database was finished in 1999. The seventh and most recent version, KGFs Database 2016, has been available since April 2016, and contains about 1 600 000 entries. The database may be purchased by KGF members and costs $ 50 (US), including postage. If you wish to purchase KGF’s Database 2016, please complete the form on the right.If you want further information about the CD, please contact us at info@genealogi-kgf.se.
Help by our searching for information: No membership required.
If you want help by our searching in KGFs database 2016, please complete the form on the right using all the information you already have concerning names, dates, relationships, etc. Please note that our searches covers only parishes in Kronoberg County. See the map below. We will send our reply by e-mail. This help is free of charge but we would be very pleased by a donation of any size to KGF, if you are satisfied with the help you have received from us. A donation can be made through PayPal, KGFs account: ola.hellner@gmail.com
We wish you success with your genealogical research!
Be a member of KGF!
Please note that you have to be member to be able to get KGFs Database.
