| Minnesota Genealogical Society 1385 Mendota Heights Road, Suite 100 |
DATABASES
In addition to books, periodicals, maps, and microform materials, many digital resources are available to researchers on-site at the Hoffman Research Library. They cannot be accessed remotely from other locations, but our volunteers can help you with access via your own laptop or tablet while you are here. The HRL also has a number of public computers set up for searching online.
United States
- FamilySearch: The HRL has been designated an affiliate of the LDS family history library in Salt Lake City since 2018. This relationship allows MGS users of FamilySearch to access a wider variety of resources than general users can get at home, including more actual digital documents. Affiliate libraries have some limitations and may not have all the services found at an LDS family history center. Affiliate Library FAQ * Video tutorials
- Ancestry – Library Edition : If you do not have a personal subscription for the Ancestry service, try the Library Edition at the HRL. It provides access to billions of historical documents, photos, news articles, indexes, family trees, and other resources in over 30,000 databases from the 1500s to the 2020s. And people just like you have created over 100 million family trees on Ancestry, most of which are public. User Guide
- American Ancestors : The New England Historic Genealogical Society is one of the nation's premier family history organizations. Its databases contain 1.4 billion names and cover every category of genealogical information. The unique Great Migration Study Project includes thousands of sketches of immigrants to New England from 1620 to 1640, as well as 25 volumes of the Great Migration Newsletter. How to search video Using AmericanAncestors.org
- Fold3 : This military-focused collection of digital documents is also owned by Ancestry. Look here for stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served in the military, from the U.S. Revolutionary War forward. Many of the records come from the U.S. National Archives, the National Archives of the U.K., and international resources from other English-speaking countries.
- NewspaperArchive: This database searches content from 16,143 publications and over 3,464 cities from all over the world. Its focus is on publications from small towns, where you are more likely to find your family.
- Newspapers.com : This collection of more than 20,000 newspaper titles from nine English-speaking countries, all 50 states, and 3 US territories is part of the Ancestry family of databases. Search for obituaries, births, and marriage announcements, and give context to your ancestors' lives with social and lifestyle pages, national and local news articles, sports coverage, advertisements, entertainment, and fashion pages. Note: MGS has a single subscription to this service. Please see the volunteer at the reference desk for assistance. Getting Started
Canada & UK
- PRDH : The Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) specializes in data about French-Canadian emigration to Quebec from 1621 to 1849. In addition to 2.4 million certificates of baptism, marriage, and burial, there is unique information about early pioneers and the Filles du Roi (Daughters of the King).
- Findmypast : If your ancestors journeyed to the US from the UK, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, take a look at the targeted resources of Findmypast. All the main categories of genealogical records are included, plus special collections of British and Irish newspapers. You can even access the electronic version of PERSI, the largest subject index to genealogy and local history periodical articles in the world. Getting Started
Ireland - Underwritten by the Irish Genealogical Society International.
Three Hoffman Research Library workstations offer free access to Irish Ancestors by John Grenham, a rich resource guide covering places, churches, surnames and variants, census substitutes, and more. This access is not available outside the library, but personal access from home can be purchased on a daily, monthly, or annual basis at JohnGrenham.com. How to use the workstation Tracing Your Irish Ancestors video
Sweden - These subscriptions are underwritten by the Swedish Genealogical Society of Minnesota. Guide to Swedish Databases (SGSM)
- ArkivDigital : The largest private provider of Swedish church records and other related historical documents is available for your research at the HRL. Their 80+ million item archive contains church books from early in the 1600s to 1894 for all of Sweden, with household examinations, moving, birth, marriage and death records. This subscription is underwritten by the Swedish Genealogical Society of Minnesota. Tutorials
- EmiWeb : EmiWeb is a web-based collection of databases focused on migration to and from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
- SVAR Riksarkivet : The Swedish National Archives databases contain searchable birth, marriage, and death records. You can also find historical maps , censuses, and economic data.
- Swedish Death Records 1830-2020 (Sveriges Dödbok 1830-2020) : This database contains a partial transcription from over 99% of all Swedish deaths records from 1830 to 2020. This application is available in English and Swedish.
- Swedish Burials (Begravda i Sverige 2) : This database was developed as a collaborative project between Sweden's cemetery administrations and the Swedish Genealogical Association. It contains just over 6.4 million burials from approximately 3,000 cemeteries, or 95% of all those known in Sweden. The time span extends from a single grave from the 15th and 16th centuries, just over a hundred graves in the 17th century, with most graves from the 18th century until the spring of 2012. This database is in Swedish.
- Rotemannen 3 (Stockholm) Records : This collection contains an extracted database and images of all of the residence records covering Stockholm from 1878 to 1926, Brännkyrka from 1913 to 1926, and Bromma from 1916 to 1926. Roteman records were created for the Stockholm area in place of the household examination records which cover the rest of the country. Roteman records are used in generally the same way and are essential for tracing family in the Stockholm area. This collection also contain a number of maps and articles about various locations, schools, companies, and much more. This database and all the accompanying documents are in Swedish.
- Swedish Census-Equivalent Records : Sweden did not have true census enumerations. But some of the largely equivalent-household examination records and tax records have been extracted at five or ten year periods. These extractions are called befolkning (census) records. In addition, the household examination records have been indexed from 1800 to 1947. Some of are available at ArkivDigital, some are available online at the Swedish National Archives, and now the more recent records are available as a searchable databases on the dedicated Swedish database computer. Included are the censuses of 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000.
- Walloon Contracts (Vallonkontrakt 2) : While technically Walloons were individuals from the French-speaking, Wallonia region of Belgium, this collection includes employment contracts of Walloon, French, German, and Dutch immigrants to Sweden in the later part of the 1500s and early part of the 1600s. Sweden encouraged migration to develop and support Sweden's burgeoning mining industry. Although about 20% returned to their country of origin, many stayed and are part of many Swede's ancestry. The collection includes the employment contracts of several hundred employees, and a single contract might cover multiple people like a father and son, or master and apprentices. The contract typically specifies the duration of the contract and pay, legal conditions, and listed witnesses. The contracts are in French, German, Dutch, and Swedish, and have all been translated into Swedish.
- Blacksmith Court Records (Hammartings) : Mining and metallurgy were extremely important to the development of Sweden, particularly in the 1500s through the 1800s. Consequently, you will find many specialized laws, record sets, and special handling for persons involved in this industry. This means not only miners and smiths, but also people who worked in positions supporting the mining industry. These records can be very valuable because many people were involved in court cases, either as direct subjects of the case, witnesses, officials, or other associated persons. This collection includes transcribed court records for workers in the mining industry. The transcripts are not exhaustive - they have removed duplicative information and focus on what the case is about, what the miners and smiths said, and the verdict of the case. This collection contains four PDF files of mining court extracts. You can search for your family by doing a text search of the files, typically by names of individuals or place names. The transcription is all in Swedish so you will still need to translate it, using a program such as Google Translate.
- Emibas: This database contains information on 1.1 million emigrants from more than 2,300 parishes. These records have been extracted from household examination records and removal records. But do note, there are a number of parishes missing, especially in Norrbottons, Uppsala, and Stockholm. This database was published by Sveriges Släktforskarförbund. The user interface can be displayed in English or Swedish and is similar to several of the other databases in the Släktforskarbörbund collection.
- Emigranten Populär 2006: This is a database consisting of eight collections and comprises almost 1.5 million emigrants from Sweden. Individuals may be included in more than one database, so may show up more than once from a search. Also, these extracts are different from the Emibas database so people may be in that database also. This database is in Swedish and there is no practical way to translate it to English.
- Emigration CD (CD Emigranter 1850-1930): This is a collection of information on individuals who emigrated between 1850 to 1930 from six parishes (Fellingsbro, Guldsmedshyttan, Lindesbergs Landsförsamling, Lindesbergs Stadsförsamling, Näsby, and Ramsberg) in Örebro län. The materials included in the collection include spreadsheets of emigrants, pictures of the churches and other important sites in these parishes, a few pictures related to the emigration experience, and some general information on migration. There are 7,521 emigrants identified in this collection, most but not all, emigrated to the United States. The information includes spreadsheets, images, and Word documents. It is not in a database. All of the material in this collection is in Swedish.
- Hallands Båtsmansregister: This is an extract of information on 5,660 sailors from Hallands län. Dates range from about 1726 to the early 1900s. The information in this database is entirely in Swedish and there is not a convenient way to translate to English. This collection contains information on the rules and regulations for sailors, an example contract, information on the various types of sailors, a description of the sources used to create the database, as well as the actual database of extracted material on the sailors. The collection was published by the Hallands Genealogiska Förening.