This week I completed a research project based in Kalmar County, Sweden. The family had their lineage traced to the time that church records began. The end-of-line ancestor, Ander Knutsson, lived while there were great records, but his birth pre-dated the church records. Our goal was to discover the birth family of this man. Who were his parents? Who were his siblings? When there are not church records to help provide scaffolding for the family group, how do we approach this challenge? We need to build evidence to create a family group.
Some of my strategies included:
- Searching burial records for anyone named Knut who could have been in the age range to be the father of this family. Patronymics imply Anders’ father was named Knut.
- Pulling any family from the Household Indexes with a parent who had Knutsson or Knutsdotter for a surname. The Household Indexes for this parish started about 40 years after the main vital church records began. The idea here is that Knut- adults might be siblings to Anders. If we could find individuals who were born in the same time frame and lived as adults in the same parish boundaries, there would be strong evidence that they all originated from the same parents.
- Reviewing christening records for children born to parents with a Knutsson/Knutsdotter surname. If any of these parents did not live to the time that Household Indexes were created, these christenings would be another clue to possible siblings for Anders Knutsson.
At this point we have not conclusively compiled the parental family group for Anders Knutsson. We have two probable siblings, but more time in the existing records will be necessary. When faced with generations that are not covered by the main records, creative research strategies are required to build the needed evidence for building a family tree.