Interpret Swedish Census Record?

Question

I am looking for assistance interpreting a couple of things on this record.  These would be the great-grandparents of my late wife.  I'm attempting to do some genealogy research on the family in Sweden for my children's benefit.  On the attached, for the family of Emil Bjurstrom:

Sweden, Household Examination Books, 1880-1930; https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSGH-7S7S-H?cc=2790465

Any thoughts on why they are crossed off/struck out?

Google says the English translation of "Maskinarb" is "machinery", so I am assuming that Emil was a Machinist.  Does that make sense?

I'm not even sure what kind of record I'm looking at.  This is on FamilySearch under the header "Household Examination Books" 1880-1930.  I'm not sure what year the record is for, but Elof was born in 1906 so likely after that and I'm not sure what the headers mean.

In short, any Sweden/Swedish experts who could help would be appreciated.  Other than being sure this is the right famly, I don't appear to know much :)
 

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You will find the reason they are crossed out to the far right on the page: they emigrated to Canada in 1906. I suppose that fits :-)

A Swedish household examination book is NOT a census, taken at a single point in time. This one covers 1900 to 1910 (as the info page at FamilySearch gives as the Event Date).

Swedes were quite closely kept track of by the church, so these household records were updated with events in the family as they occurred, within the covered period. In this case the family arrived from Alnön (where most of the kids were born) in December 1904.

Comments

This knowledge is really helpful.  It's more like a community family bible than a census.  Now I know what I'm looking at.  They're in one book in Alno where they arrived in 1898.  They're in the book in Alsen, where they moved in 1904.  They then moved to Canada.  What I will now dig for is the book from Lerback, Orebro prior to 1898 which should be out there.  Thank you for your help

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Emil Bjurström was born 5 December 1872, not 1873 (although the year isn't filled in on every page in the book).

Lerbäcks kyrkoarkiv, Födelse- och dopböcker, SE/ULA/10831/C/7 (1869-1878), bildid: F0002029_00090 https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisning/F0002029_00090

The hints at FamilySearch can usually be verified through records available at Riksarkivet: https://sok.riksarkivet.se/kyrkoarkiv

If you don't have the 'ä' in Lerbäck on your keyboard you can search for Lerb* with an asterisk
https://sok.riksarkivet.se/kyrkoarkiv?Arkivsok=lerb*

Answer 2

This is a "Husförhörslängd", a rather unique Swedish instrument, which was made as the pastor traveled round to all the homes of the parish, wrote down the names of all persons in the household, and examined each one to assess their Bible knowledge and Christian faith.

The reason why they are struck out is probably explained in the rightmost column, which says that the family emigrated to Canada 4 April (19)06.

"Maskinarb" is an abbreviation for "Maskinarbetare" = machine worker, which means that he was operating some unspecified machine, such as eg. a lathe.

I haven't looked for a date, but the source info says it's from the period 1900-1910, and this page seems to have been recorded near the end of that period.

Comments

Perfect.  Thanks for helping.

Answer 3

Hi,

Yes I can understand your confusion. This is not a census record. Censuses did happen in Sweden, but were based on the material you are currently viewing: the household examination records (and from 1895 forward, the parish registers).

The Church of Sweden was Sweden's official state church until 2000 and had the role of handling population records until 1992. Everyone in Sweden was supposed to be documented in these records, and when they moved from one parish to another they were to be crossed out and moved out in the departing parish and put into the new parish.

The record you linked is the parish register for Alsen parish in Jämtland county for the period 1900-1910. It's preceded by the 1890-1899 record and succeeded by the 1910-1920 volumes. Emil Bjurström, wife and 3 children have moved to Moviken in Alsen (Moviken is the label at the top of the page) on 11 December 1904 from Alnö parish (which is in Västernorrland county). On 4 April 1906 they officially left the parish (where a 4th child had been born during their stay there) with the destination Canada. This is why they're crossed out. The record lasts until 1910 so the Alsen parish priests and staff know not to count them in future summaries of the population.

Answer 4

Adding to other answers this is technically not a "husförhörslängd" (household examination book). When these household examinations stopped that series of books was replaced with a series of "församlingsböcker" (parish books) containing much of the same information, and this is the first such book in the church archive for Alsen parish.

Here you can see a complete register of what books are in that archive.

Both for household examination books and these later parish books it's important as have been said to realize that they are kept for several years, and continuously updated, so to understand them right you often have to think about that: what was written first on this page?; what was then struck out?; what was then added?; etc.