The first major linking pattern to understand in Scandinavian genealogy is Nominal Linking. This refers to an individual’s surname. There are a few types of surnames used in Scandinavia. The most common surname type is Patronymics.
Patronymics in Scandinavia refers to the practice of using the father’s given name and attaching either –sen/son or –datter/dotter to the end. If my father’s name was Peder Jensen, my surname would be Pedersdatter. Many people feel confused by this because it’s a different way of thinking than how we construct surnames in most of the western world today. Just remember that rather than matching the surname from generation to generation, we will be looking for a father with a given name that matches the surnames of the children. Our ancestors used these patronymic traditions until the mid-1800s when we started to see more permanent surnames adopted. After that time, the same surname would stay with the family for every subsequent generation.
Everyone in Scandinavia had a patronymic surname, but other types of surnames were often used to help delineate between the multiple Hans Jensens in a town. Other surname types include occupational names. This would be something like Smed or “the smith” being attached to the end of the name. In this cases, your ancestor would be known as Hans Jensen Smed, sometimes just written as Hans Smed.
Another surname type includes physical characteristics. These surnames have been used for thousands of years. Some of the earliest known would be Erik the Red and Harold Bluetooth. These surnames were just used for that one individual, then the patronymic surname followed the other generations. We know that Erik the Red had a son called Leif Erikson.
Another common surname tradition, especially in Norway and Sweden, is using the farm names as surnames. Every small community (could be a town, could be a group of four farms) had a unique name. Many of our ancestors took these farm names as a moniker to distinguish themselves and identify the place of the family origins. For example, I grew up with neighbors named Lundberg, Lindquist, Liljenquist, Berg, etc. All of these are Swedish place name surnames. An ancestor might be called Jon Hanson Liljenquist (the little twig) and that would keep him separate from all of the other Jon Hansons living in the same larger parish.
So what this all boils down to is that there are not set surnames that follow our ancestors for many generations in Scandinavia. When we are looking for our ancestors, we need to examine the type of surname being used and let that be a guide to which individuals belong together in a family group. The patronymics will be the most common surname pattern to follow. If patronymics seem to be missing, look for records of the individual as a child or young adult when they did not have an occupation or when they would have been living with parents (like a christening record). The clues are there to lead us to the correct families, we just have to use our brains to really analyze the information in front of us.