Important Scandinavian immigration clues for ancestry research.
One of the essential considerations in finding our ancestors is immigration research. Immigration/migration patterns reveal clues to finding the country of origin of immigrant ancestors and so much more.
Scandinavian Immigration to America for Ancestor Research
Table of Contents
- Think like A Historian Not As Genealogist for Immigration
- Other Resources to Help Trace Immigrant Ancestors
- America: People on the Move
- Danish Immigration
- Finnish Immigration
- Icelandic Immigration
- Norwegian Immigration
- Scandinavian Immigration
- Swedish Immigration
Return to Scandinavian Immigration to America Table of Contents
Think like A Historian Not As Genealogist for Immigration
Look at immigration from a historian’s point of view and not from the genealogical point of view. You’re trying to understand what your ancestors did and why. As a genealogist, you wonder why your ancestors migrated, and you look for clues that might direct you to the birthplace in your country of origin. As genealogists, we first search through deeds, wills, bible records, and other documents. Documents can tell you that your ancestor sold his property from one person to another, but it does not tell why he then picked up and moved from Virginia to Tennessee. When you add seek to understand immigration patterns of the time and people, your chances for success expand dramatically because you understand what your family was thinking, see what others individuals were doing, where they were going, and where they came from.
By learning about the immigration patterns for a specific ethnic group to which your ancestor belonged in the period they lived, we begin to see trends that correlate to our family, such as the ports they arrived, the counties and cities from which they came, and where they settled, the reasons for decisions that were made, the types of records they left behind and where.
You start by answering the question:
- What was their ethnic background or group to which you think they belonged?
- Where were they Puritans, Welch, or Germans?
- Now you begin to answer the questions:
- Why did they come?
- When did they come?
- Where did they settle?
- What were their social and work conditions?
- What was their religious background?
Return to Scandinavian Immigration to America Table of Contents
Other Resources to Help Trace Immigrant Ancestors
Are you developing a family history for an individual or family? Are you trying to find their immigrant origins? Start by seeing the articles
- 5 Steps to Finding Immigrant Ancestor Country of Origin
- Overcome Research Brick Walls to Find Ancestor’s Country of Origin
The following videos can help you get a head start in understanding immigration and country of origin ancestor research.
How to Find the Origin of Immigrants Coming to America
An introduction to immigration and migration historical research. You will be introduced to a five-step methodology to find the immigrant origins when conducting individual and family history research.
Addition videos include:
- What Records to Search to Discover Immigrant Origins-Part 1
- What Records to Search to Discover Immigrant Origins-Part 2
- How to Find Immigrants Real Surname and Life Event Dates
The following are records I have found extremely helpful and full of clues to finding an individual’s birthplace and immigrant origins. It is designed to provide a quick reference and direction of finding and searching for records as probable places to find information. You can use these records to develop an immigrant paper trail to assist you in finding and tracing an individual immigrant’s origins. Check out these articles:
Check out the following country profiles to learn more about their immigration and migration in America.
| Immigration and Migration in America | ||
| Czechs and Slovaks | Danish | Dutch |
| English | Finnish | French |
| German | Greek | Hungarian |
| Icelandic | Irish | Italian |
| Norwegian | Polish | Russian |
| Scandinavian | Scottish | Swedish |
| Welch | United States Western Migration | |
Articles include:
- British Immigration to America for Ancestry Research
- Scandinavian Immigration to America for Ancestry Research
- Western European Immigration to America for Ancestry Research
- Eastern European Immigration to America for Ancestry Research
- Western Migration in America for Ancestry Research
Learn more about immigrant records at “Immigrant Records at the National Archives.”
America: People on the Move
When you stepped back and began looking at my ancestors as part of an ethnic group at a given time and place, you quickly see that America is a land of people on the move. Our ancestors were part of groups that, for specific reasons, felt a “push’ to move to escape political or religious oppression, wars, and violence, and major natural disasters. The reasons include:
- War or another armed conflict
- Famine or drought
- Disease
- Poverty
- Political corruption
- Disagreement with politics
- Religious intolerance
- Natural disasters
- Discontent with the natives, such as frequent harassment, bullying, and abuse
- Lack of employment opportunities
- These factors generally do not affect people in developed countries; even a natural disaster is unlikely to cause out-migration.
When you are pushed, where do you go? One senses the “pull” America had upon our ancestors. Economic and professional opportunities were the foundation for our ancestors coming to America. It was the availability of lands for farming, an abundance of jobs, and higher salaries. The reasons include:
- Higher incomes
- Lower taxes
- Better weather
- Better availability of employment
- Better medical facilities
- Better education facilities
- Better behavior among people
- Family reasons
- Political stability
- Religious tolerance
- Relative freedom
- Weather
- National prestige
The following immigration/migration profiles are provided as an example of valuable information for finding the origin of your ancestors and helping to understand your ethnic heritage better. This information is not all-inclusive, but it will be a good starting point for you to expand upon.
Danish Immigration
Why and when did the Danish come?
There was relatively little religious or political repression in Denmark compared with Sweden and Norway. In the nineteenth century, one of the motivations for Danish emigration was the prodding of the Church of the Latter-day Saints or the Mormons.
- When the Mormons sent missionaries to Europe in the mid-1840s and 1850s, they sent three to Scandinavia.
- The missionaries had an easier time in Denmark than in other countries because their government relaxed their work.
- Their recruitment was highly successful: The Mormons drew about twenty thousand Danish converts to their center in Utah in the second half of the nineteenth century.
- The church had an emigration fund, which paid for the passage of many Danes who would not otherwise have been able to go.
- Even before the Danish Mormon converts immigrated to the United States, about two thousand Danes had arrived between 1820 and 1850.
The Danish immigrants were composed mainly of middle-class families who could pay their way to the United States. But like Sweden and Norway, by 1859, Denmark was experiencing the economic strain of sudden overpopulation. Tales of fertile lands and plenty of job opportunities in the United States brought hope to many in the old country.
Three hundred thousand Danes had emigrated by 1920. In 1900, one-tenth of Denmark’s total population immigrated to the United States. Most of these immigrants were young and male and came from the lower economic classes.
Where did the Danish settle?
The 2000 United States Census lists 1,430,897 persons of Danish ancestry. The states with the most significant Danish American communities include California, Utah, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Washington. While Swedes and Norwegians maintained strong cultural communities where their populations were concentrated, Danes scattered around the nation.
What were the Danish social and work conditions?
Unlike Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns, the Danes did not establish many tightly knit Old World communities in the United States. Because fewer Danish women emigrated than Danish men, the young male immigrants often married women from other ancestries and quickly assimilated into American culture (blended into).
Are there any clues to the Danish family naming patterns?
Until the mid-1800s, Danish surnames followed a patronymic system, and a father’s given name was typically used for his children’s surname. For example, Simon Pedersen’s children had Simonsen’s surname (son of Simon) or Simonsdatter (daughter of Simon). Peder Simonsen, Simon’s son, gave his children the surname of Pedersen (male) or Pedersdatter (female).
By the mid-1800s, this naming pattern was phased out, and one surname was passed through succeeding generations. Pedersen became the dominant surname for my family, and ultimately the spelling was changed to Peterson.
- The first male child was usually named after the father’s father.
- The second boy was usually named after the mother’s father.
- The first female child was usually named after the mother’s mother.
- The second girl was named after the father’s mother.
- Additional children were often named for the parents and the parents’ brothers and sisters.
- If one spouse died, the other remarried, and children were born to the new pair, the couple usually named the first child of the same sex after the deceased spouse.
Additional surnames appear in Denmark besides patronymic surnames. Unlike the other Scandinavian countries, there is no easy explanation for when, why, and how these additional surnames appear. There are some patterns but no fast and predictable rules. Although some places, such as much of Jutland’s place names, were used as surnames, they were not like the farm names of Norway. There was no equivalent to the military and trade names used in Sweden in Denmark.
In Scandinavian countries, the same dozen or so given names were used repeatedly in different combinations, making it difficult to distinguish between more than one person with common names such as Rasmus Pedersen or Jens Hansen. There might be three or four people with the same name living in the same small village. Among the strategies used to distinguish such people were:
- Use of an occupation: Jens Rasmusen Smed (blacksmith) or Rasmus Olsen Skredder (tailor)
- Use of age indicator: Ung (young) Jens Pedersen, Gammel (old, abbreviated ‘gl.’) Jens Pedersen
- Use of a place name where the person may have moved from: Hans Pedersen Skaarup, Rasmus Larsen Skablund
- Use a surname that may have come from Germany originally: Hans Jensen Schrøder.
A family could have used a more unusual patronymic surname in addition to their patronymic. For example: Jens Pedersen Clemmendsen, Jens Rasmusen Svendsen, and Niels Rasmusen Ovesen. Sometimes they might use one or the other of the two surnames or both (see examples below). In all cases, the patronymic is the primary surname, and the other surname is secondary and just used to identify him better. Danes were clever at using nicknames to distinguish people, but official records tend not to use these nicknames often. Nicknames will often appear in at least some records.
Finnish Immigration
When did the Finnish come, and where did the Finnish settle?
Mass migrations from Finland to the United States took place a little later than those of the other Scandinavian countries in the early years of the twentieth century. Small numbers of Finns had been coming over since the colonial days.
Finland, which Sweden had ruled until 1809 (when Sweden ceded it or gave it up to Russia), had been well represented among the Swedes who had settled New Sweden. Some say as many as half the settlers sent to the colony by Sweden were Finnish. After coming under Russian rule, a small population of Finns immigrated to Alaska, which the Russian American Fur Company was managing.
Some of the Finns who worked there under the Russians married native Aleut women and stayed there even after the United States bought Alaska in 1867.
- Before 1850, most Finnish immigrants to the United States were sailors who left their ships and either joined the rush to California searching for gold or found a home in one of the big eastern cities.
- In the 1860s, mining companies began recruiting among the Finns, particularly those living in northern Norway, to work in the copper mines in northern Michigan.
- After the first Finns had made the trip, found work, and reported home, more of their countrymen followed, significantly when farming conditions deteriorated in Finland in the 1870s.
- Between 1870 and 1920, about 340,000 Finns immigrated to the United States.
- They primarily went to Michigan, Minnesota, and New York, and many lived in predominantly Finnish communities to preserve their language and customs.
- The last large migration of about twelve thousand Finns occurred in 1923.
Are there any clues to the Finnish family naming patterns?
All Finns had patronymic names, and some also had a farm name they used (similar to Norway) or a family surname. The same person may have been listed with a patronymic name and a farm or family name in another record.
- Farm Names–In addition to a given name and a patronymic name, a farm name is used to identify the members of the farming communities in the Finnish church records. If I lived on the “Saari” farm, my full name (given, patronymic, and farm name combined) would be “David Jackiesson Saari.
Eastern and western Finland had different naming traditions. In some areas, these practices overlap, and you find both customs being used by different families. It might not be obvious which custom a family was using until the children left the home farm and began listing a surname for them.
Patronymic Surnames (found mostly in Western Finland, primarily: Ahvenanmaa, Häme, Kymi, Turku-Pori, Uusimaa, and Vaasa Counties). Surnames changed from generation to generation, just as was done in Scandinavian countries and after the same pattern as Swedish patronymics.
- Place-Names. In western parts of Finland, the farm names referred to a family living on the farm, just as was the tradition in Norway (see Norway below). Their farm name could change as a family moved from one farm to another.
- Soldier Names. Just as with Sweden (see Sweden below), when a person joined the army in Finland, they were required to take a surname derived from their enlistment. Also, some names were taken in the 19th century when a person finished an apprenticeship or had a professional trade.
- Permanent Surnames (found mainly in Eastern Finland, primarily: Kuopio, Lappi, Mikkeli, Oulu, and Viipuri Counties). Surnames did not change from generation to generation, and they follow the same pattern as we are used to today, where a surname was passed from father to son for many centuries. Many names are similar to those found in western Finland, but they do not change as a family moves from one farm to another or from one generation to another.
Icelandic Immigration
When did the Icelandic come, and where did the Icelandic settle?
About 15,000 came to the United States between 1855 and 1914—a considerable proportion of Iceland’s total population, 78,000 people in 1900.
- Iceland experienced a series of disasters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including disastrous volcanic eruptions, widespread disease, a sheep epidemic, and widespread starvation.
- When the other Scandinavian countries were experiencing population explosions, Iceland’s population decreased because many people had not survived the catastrophes.
- The country was still part of a union with Denmark, but when Icelanders emigrated, most preferred to go to Canada and the United States.
Most Icelanders in the United States settled in North Dakota and Washington or New York and Los Angeles. In 1855 the Mormons established a city at Spanish Fork, Utah. Icelandic Mormons flowed into the new settlement for five years, making it the first Icelandic settlement in the United States.
- Many of the city’s current population are of Icelandic descent. In 1918 Iceland won its independence from Denmark.
The states with the largest Icelander populations include Washington, California, Utah, Minnesota, and North Dakota.
Are there any clues to Icelandic family naming patterns?
Patronymics. Given names become even more significant in the patronymic system, as in Scandinavia, where the father’s given name becomes the son’s surname. If Eric Larson has a son, he will be John Ericson, and his son will be Sven Johnson.
Norwegian Immigration
Why did the Norwegian come?
In the early 1800s, Norway’s population increased by 50 percent.
- The country had relatively little land that was good for farming.
- When the population soared, more than half the people owned no land, and there were no jobs.
The first expedition of Norwegian settlers to immigrate to the United States at the beginning of the nineteenth century consisted of fifty-two religious dissenters, people who chose to practice their religion that the official Lutheran church did not approve of. Some were Haugeans, followers of the teachings of peasant preacher Hans Nielsen Hauge.
- In 1796, Hauge traveled throughout Norway preaching in farmers’ homes and distributing his intense and homespun devotional literature.
- Another group that experienced oppression in Norway were the Quakers, members of the Society of Friends, a radical Protestant sect that rejected formal methods of worship because they believed that the Holy Spirit dwells within each person and that a person who yields to the prompting of their own “inner light” will be saved. Because the Lutheran church would not accept the Haugeans and the Quakers, some believers chose to emigrate.
When did the Norwegian come?
Norwegian immigration to the United States peaked between 1866 and 1914. Over six hundred thousand Norwegians came to America during these years. In contrast to earlier Norwegian immigrants who came to America to settle permanently, many of the immigrants of the peak years were single young men hoping to earn enough money to return to Norway in better circumstances.
As many as 25 percent did return, but the rest stayed. Norwegian immigrants continued to come to the United States after World War I (1914–18; a war in which Germany fought against many other countries, including the United States), but their numbers have declined steadily.
Where did the Norwegian settle?
Norwegian immigrants came yearly after that, settling first in Illinois, then spreading north and west to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota, and eventually to the Pacific Northwest. A few settled in Texas, and some stayed in New York, where they first landed, rather than traveling west.
The states with the largest populations of Norwegian Americans are Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, Washington, and North Dakota. North Dakota is the most “Norwegian” state in the United States, with Norwegian Americans making up 29 percent.
Are there any clues to the Norwegian family naming patterns?
Before 1814, Norway was governed by Denmark for a few centuries. Because of this, the patronymic endings we generally standardize to -sen and -better. Modern community histories (bygdebøger), on the other hand, have often standardized these names according to local dialect pronunciation variously -sson, -søn, etc.
Most unique for Norway besides what is mentioned previously is the use of farm names and their patronymic names. Asset surnames were required in 1923, or as people emigrated to America, they often used their farm name as their permanent surname. Because of this, if they had an unusual farm name, one can often find the town where a family was from in Norway just by knowing the family’s surname and looking it up in a gazetteer (index of place names).
• Farm Names–In addition to a given name and a patronymic name, a farm name is used to identify the members of the farming communities in the Finnish church records. If I lived on the “Saari” farm, my full name (given, patronymic, and farm name combined) would be “David Jackiesson Saari.
If you consider the farm name as not a surname but rather an address, it might be more appropriate in some cases. Indeed, the farm’s name was associated with the family living there; however, their farm name changed if they moved to a new farm. If a person lived on four or five different farms before coming to America, he could have had many different farm names. The name he eventually used in America might be the farm he last lived on in Norway or where his family was originally from.
Scandinavian Immigration
What are some of the important Scandinavian immigration facts?
In 1638, Sweden attempted to establish a New Sweden colony in the area around Delaware Bay (present-day New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania). About one-third to one-half of the settlers in New Sweden were Finns.
In 1825, a group of fifty-two Norwegian religious dissenters pooled their resources to immigrate to America. By 1834 and 1835, the group had migrated west to Illinois, and they established the Fox River settlement, which became the base camp for future Norwegian immigrants to the United States.
The first large wave of Scandinavian immigration in the 1850s most often consisted of middle-class people moving to the Midwest to establish farms. In the mid-1840s, the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, or the Mormons, sent three missionaries to Scandinavia. The missionaries were particularly successful in Denmark because the laws were lenient toward their work. About twenty thousand Danes were converted by Mormon missionaries and immigrated to the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Unlike the Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns, the Danes did not establish many tightly knit Old World communities in the United States. Because fewer Danish women emigrated than Danish men, the young male immigrants often married women from other ancestries and lost touch with their national roots after a few generations.
The World War I era (1914–18) was hard in the United States for new immigrants, and Scandinavian Americans became targets of an anti-immigrant trend. During the excessive patriotic hysteria of these years, many Scandinavian Americans chose to hide their ethnicity and become as “American” as possible.
In 1980, almost 30 percent of Swedish Americans claimed pure Swedish ancestry, a very high percentage. Most Swedish Americans lived isolated in Swedish-American farming communities or urban enclaves (distinct cultural or nationality units within a foreign city or region). Because of their isolation and the low rate of ethnic intermarriage, Swedish Americans retained their ethnic language longer than many other American immigrant groups.
When did the Scandinavians come?
There was not much emigration from Scandinavian countries until the nineteenth century, with some very notable exceptions.
- Norway claims to have been the first European nation to “discover” the New World. Legendary Norwegian explorer Leif Eriksson (c. 971–1015) is said to have set foot on the shores of North America, probably in Newfoundland, Canada, sometime around 1000 C.E.
- In 1639, Danish sea captain Jonas Bronck established a settlement in the New World. He brought his wife and a group of indentured servants (people who agree to work for a colonist for a set period in exchange for payment of their passage from Europe to the New World and at the end of their term are usually given land or goods) from Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands to a 500-acre parcel of land he had purchased between the present-day Bronx and Harlem Rivers in New York.
- In 1638, Sweden attempted to establish New Sweden’s colony in North America.
During the nineteenth century, the population of the Scandinavian countries began to increase at a very rapid rate.
- Before the Industrial Revolution, the rise in population (the historical change from a farm-based economy to an economic system based on goods manufacturing on an organized and mass-produced basis) could bring industry and new jobs into the cities.
- Many rural people took a severe financial hit, with no land to farm and no jobs available.
In 1840, the first immigrants in North America had settled in and wrote to family and friends in Scandinavia to describe their new homes.
- Then newspapers began to report on the wonders of the New World.
- They reported that the U.S. government gave land to farmers who promised to farm it for several years.
- The promise of free land drew large groups of immigrants.
Where did the Scandinavians settle?
As a general rule, the further north Scandinavian Americans lived in their native country, the further north they tended to live within the United States. Many Scandinavian immigrants were drawn to the United States by the availability of farmland, and they tended to move to the Midwest and, later on, to the Pacific Northwest. Others came for jobs, to work as shipbuilders, miners, and loggers.
What were the Scandinavian’s social and work conditions?
Except for the Danes, most Scandinavian immigrants formed communities in the United States. They could continue to speak their language, practice their customs, and educate their children as they chose. After the first few families from a village or a town in the old country had become established in the United States, more families from the same village would immigrate and settle near them.
Many Scandinavian American communities were made up almost entirely of people who had known each other and lived near one another in the old country. On farms, Scandinavian women shared almost all aspects of the work, raising animals and tending crops.
Farmers would go off to work in a logging camp or elsewhere during the winter, leaving their wives and children to take care of the farm. Because of their self-sufficiency and ability to work hard, Scandinavian American women were seen as domestic (housekeeping) servants in U.S. homes.
By the turn of the twentieth century, single Scandinavian women were immigrating to the United States and finding work—many as domestic servants, but others in factories and textile mills.
What were the Scandinavian naming patterns?
Patronymics. Given names become even more significant in the patronymic system, as in Scandinavia, where the father’s given name becomes the son’s surname. If Eric Larson has a son, he will be John Ericson, and his son will be Sven Johnson.
Are there any clues to family naming patterns?
Before about 1850, all Scandinavian countries used a form of patronymics. The given name of a father was used as a surname for each of the children.
- The son’s used the father’s given name and a suffix that meant “son,” The daughters used the father’s given name and a suffix meaning “daughter.”
- Following are examples from the four most significant of the Scandinavian countries:
Denmark- Norway
- Lars Andersen (father)
- Hans Larsen (son)
- Anna Larsdatter (daughter)
- Anders Hansen (grandson)
- a. Maren Hansdatter (granddaughter)
Sweden-Finland
- Olof Svensen (father)
- Mons Olofsson (son)
- Stina Olofsdotter (daughter)
- Sven Monsson (grandson)
- Katharine Monsdotter (granddaughter)
From about 1860-1904, the naming customs in each of these countries changed from this system of patronymics used for hundreds of years to the type of system used in the rest of Europe and America where the surname was passed from father to son. This shift in naming patterns took place in the cities and last in the rural countryside villages.
During this period of change, you will find several possibilities for surnames:
- A person could use the patronymic name they were born with for a family surname and pass it on to their children.
- A person could take their father’s patronymic name and use it for a surname.
- A person could take an entirely different name such as a place name or a name they liked and begin using it from then on as their surname.
Because this is the same period, many Scandinavians emigrated to America, the first generation on either side of the ocean can be complicated to research.
- Therefore, many Scandinavian records will have a first name index rather than a surname index.
- Three or four brothers often took entirely different surnames in a single-family when they got to America.
Scandinavians also had some general naming customs they followed for given names to a greater or lesser extent.
- They would often name the first son after the father, the second son after the mother’s father, the third son after the father, and other sons after uncles.
- Likewise, the daughters were named after the grandmothers, mothers, and aunts.
- If a spouse died and the husband or wife remarried, the next child of the same sex as the deceased spouse would be given their name.
- If an infant died young, the next child of that sex was given the same name, and this helped lead to the use of the same given names repeatedly in each new generation.
- In many Norwegian and Danish examples, you will find two or three children in a family with the same given name who all lived.
- For example, a father’s probate record in Norway might list among the children three sons: Torvald the elder, Torvald the middle, and Torvald the youngest.
Besides these customs, each Scandinavian country had its unique naming customs.
- Someone who understands that soldiers in Sweden are given surnames often assumes this is how names in Denmark came about.
- These types of generalizations do not work and cause a lot of confusion. You will need to refer to each of the unique paradigms listed below to understand surnames other than patronymics used in each country.
Swedish Immigration
Why did the Swedish come?
Like Norway, Sweden experienced a population explosion, mainly in rural areas. It is estimated that the population of Sweden had more than doubled in the century before the emigration. Industrialization had not yet taken hold, so there were few jobs to be found off the farm, even in the capital city of Stockholm.
A series of droughts and floods created a famine during the 1860s, and soaring prices made what little cash people had worth less and less. Political upheavals, a cruel government, religious oppression, a rigid class system, and mandatory military service made life uneasy for some in Sweden.
It was illegal to belong to any but the official Lutheran church. Because the Lutheran church in Sweden was very strict and conservative (staying with traditional values), there were often conflicts between the church and political reformers or intellectual groups (people given to creative speculation and different thoughts about life rather than accepting traditional values). Many immigrated seeking more freedom, but most were seeking economic opportunity.
When did the Swedish come, and where did the Swedish settle?
Between 1851 and 1929, 1.2 million Swedish immigrants entered the United States. Only Ireland and Norway (and perhaps Iceland) lost a higher percentage of their populations to North America. The first big wave of Swedish immigration to the United States began in the 1850s, and it was largely middle class and consisted of entire farming families. They settled in the Midwest, where the terrain (land) was much like what they had known in Sweden.
The United States expanded westward and promoted settlement by offering acreage at low prices. The Homestead Act of 1862, which offered free land to those willing to farm it for a certain number of years, drew vast numbers of Swedes to the United States.
A second significant wave of Swedish immigrants from the late 1870s to early 1890s included many more urban Swedes who settled in cities and industrial areas of New York and New England. Others joined earlier immigrants in Chicago.
Swedish farmers continued to immigrate and began spreading westward, all the way to California. Several Swedish Mormons, who had been converted in Sweden by Mormon missionaries, settled in Utah, the center of the Mormon community.
The last significant wave of Swedish immigration to the United States began in the early 1900s and lasted until 1929.
- With the onset of the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression (1929–41; a period of economic hard times worldwide), economic opportunities were no better in the United States than in Sweden.
- Many of Sweden’s repressive government measures had been lifted by this time.
There was no longer any compelling reason to leave Sweden, and emigration virtually ceased. Since 1930, only a minimal number of Swedes have immigrated to the United States. The states with the largest Swedish American populations were Minnesota, California, Illinois, Washington, and Michigan.
What were the Swedish naming patterns?
Patronymics. Given names become even more significant in the patronymic system, as in Scandinavia, where the father’s given name becomes the son’s surname. If Eric Larson has a son, he will be John Ericson, and his son will be Sven Johnson.
The source material for this resource is a compilation from the following references:
- Benson, Sonia. U.S. Immigration and Migration Almanac. Ed. Sarah Hermsen. UXL-GALE, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006.
- Daniels, Roger. Coming to America. A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, New York, New York: HarperCollins, 2002.
- Dollarhide, William. British Origins of American Colonists, 1629 – 1775, Bountiful, UT: Heritage Quest, 1997.
- Dollarhide, William. Map Guide of American Migration Routes, 1735 – 1815, Bountiful, UT: Heritage Quest, 2000.
- Wills, Chuck. Destination America. The People and Cultures That Created A Nation, New York, New York: D.K. Publishing, Inc., 2005.
6. Research Outlines by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, UT.
