Introduction
In My Roots, you will be assisted in recording your ancestry in a dedicated -but easy-to-use Ancestry Tree. The Ancestry Tree helps you to document where you come from regarding your family background and roots.
Most of us obviously have a clear picture of our parents and to some extent of our grandparents, but the details about where they lived and photos from their childhood are often missing. Many of us only have a vague idea about our great-grandparents. The Ancestry Tree can compile detailed information about your family roots.
Many dedicated websites can help you find historical data about your family, and we will take you through the most commonly used databases to assist you in finding the needed information. If you want to study your Ancestry in more detail, we strongly recommend that you use a more elaborate template for storing the data about your family roots. You can use, among others, the American website Ancestry.com, where it is possible to generate a detailed ancestry record for your family. You can start by using the ‘Create a free online Family Tree’ option and see if this function suits your needs. Since it is an American website, you will not have direct access to the relevant Danish databases, but their templates give you an excellent opportunity to record the detailed data of your family roots. You will, however, be able to search directly in the following database: Denmark Births and Christenings, 1631-1900s and many millions of pieces of information from Swedish church books.
In this section, you will also get informed advice about how to supplement your Ancestry Tree with data from relevant, up-to-date DNA tests.
Ancestry Template
The downloadable Ancestry Template below is a PowerPoint file that works on most PCs and Laptops.
In the first section, you can include the names, dates of birth, and birthplaces of your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. The second section allows you to include pictures of all your relatives from the first section.
You can share your Ancestry Tree with family members and let them add information to your Tree.
Download the Ancestry Template below:
In Denmark, you can search for missing information about your relatives in two important public databases.
The online Danish church records in ‘Dansk Demografisk Database’ include births, marriages, and death data for the last three centuries (1640 – 1953).
You can use the following entry point to start your search in the database:
The other important database is the Danish Census Database, which you will find by using this entry point.
The Danish census database contains detailed information about each household in Denmark for nearly two centuries (1787-1950).
If any of your relatives have lived in Copenhagen, it can also be relevant to search in the Police Registry that contains detailed information of people living in Copenhagen from 1890 to 1923:
In Sweden, you can search for missing information about your relatives in several public databases. You can use the following entry point to start your search in the database:
This platform offers a comprehensive guide to Sweden’s ancestry, family history, and genealogy, including parish registers, transcripts, census, and birth, marriage, and death records.
This database provides access to over 100 million photographed images from church records and other documents and Sweden’s most extensive genealogy index with over a quarter of a million searchable names.
These records contain detailed information about each household in Sweden for various periods. They are essential for understanding your ancestors’ living conditions and family structures.
If any of your relatives lived in major towns or cities like Stockholm, searching in local archives that contain detailed information about residents might also be relevant. In Stockholm’s archive, you can find information on people who lived in Stockholm from 1878 to 1926.
DNA Tests
Three basic DNA Tests can assist you in finding relatives, identifying your maternal roots, and, for men, more specifically, identifying their paternal roots.
The autosomal DNA test records approximately 700,000 locations on your chromosomes. Both men and women can take this test, and the results can assist you in identifying relatives from any branch of your Ancestry Tree within the last five generations. This test will also provide you with information about your geographic ancestry, which goes back several centuries. It is highly recommended that other family members be tested since this will allow you to identify where your DNA comes from on your maternal and paternal Ancestry Tree.
The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) test allows both women and men to identify people with maternal ancestry since mothers pass their mtDNA to all children. Since the mtDNA is mutating more slowly than Y-DNA, it will identify more people with similar test results, but it will often be more challenging to find common ancestors with this test. The mtDNA test will, however, provide you with information about your geographic ancestry, which goes back many thousand years with respect to your maternal ancestry.
The Y chromosome test (Y-DNA test) allows men to identify men in their paternal ancestry since the Y chromosome passes from father to son with rare mutations. Since men usually use their father’s surname, relatives or ancestors identified by the test often share his surname. Women can have their father, brother, or father’s brother tested in order to identify people in their paternal ancestry. The Y-DNA test will also provide you with information about your geographic ancestry, which goes back many thousand years with respect to your paternal ancestry.
If you want to take one of the three modern DNA tests, many companies perform the tests, especially in the US. One of the companies with the largest database is FamilyTreeDNA. The tests will cost you between 80 and 150 USD for each of the basic tests. We recommend that you start with the autosomal DNA test, which costs around 80 USD plus postage. The DNA tests generally only make sense if they are used in conjunction with your Ancestry Tree. The modern autosomal DNA tests can also be used to identify an unknown father or half-sibling with a very high degree of certainty.