Three gazetteers for Swedish genealogical research are: Svensk Ortförteckning, Geografiskt-Statistiskt Handlexikon öfver Sverige, and Svenska Orter, Atlas över Sverige med Ortbeskrivning. Below you will find examples from each gazetteer with English translations to help the researcher better understand the information found in each gazetteer.
Svensk Ortförteckning lists in a alphabetical sequences the farms and villages in Sweden. The letters Å, Ä, and Ö follow Z in the Swedish alphabet. Following the alphabetical listing of the farm or village is an abbreviation of what the place is. The most common abbreviations are gd (gård) = farm, gd: ar (gårdar) = larger farm, and by = village. The name of the parish (församling or socken) in which the smaller place is located comes immediately before the 4 letter abbreviation for the county. If the name of a civil community has been given, the name of the parish may be in parantheses. Immediately after the name of the parish, whether it is in parentheses or not, is the abbreviation for the county (län) in which the parish is located. The county abbreviation is always shown in upper case letters. For example, the abbreviation for the county of Kopparberg is KPBG. A key to decode the abbreviations used in Svensk Ortförteckning can be found inside the book's front cover. Following the county abbreviation, the researcher will find the principle abbreviations P, Tf, and Tg. The P is followed by the name of the post office nearest to the parish, the Tf identifies the telephone prefix for the parish,the Tg identifies the nearest telegraph office, and the J identifies the nearest train station, with the number of kilometers it is away from that small place.
Names of farms or villages that are preceded by a descriptive term, such as, Stora (greater), Lilla (little), Västra (west), Östra (east), etc. will be found after all the singular listings for the places. For example, if the researcher is looking for the place name Stora Nybble, he would first find the listing for the place Nybble. Following the listings for Nybble, the abbreviation St:a is found. St:a is the abbreviation for Stora (greater). The information to the right of this abbreviation pertains to the place called Stora Nybble.
In the 1965 edition of Svensk Ortforteckning on page 655 is the listing for "Nybble". There are 16 separate listings for the place name "Nybble". Three of these listings are "Nybble" in Örebro county. One of the three listings follows:
Nybble – by hl lg: er fabr Tysslinge (Vintrosa) ÖREB P Vintrosa Tf 019 Ör Tg Örebro 15 J Fjugesta 10 Örebro 19.
This listing can be interpreted as follows:
Nybble – a village with apartments and factory located in Tysslinge civil community (Vintrosa parish) in Örebro county, the nearest post office is in Vintrosa parish, the telephone prefix is 019 and the nearest telegraph office is located in Orebro City.
The crucial information for the researcher is that Nybble is a village formerly located in the parish of Vintrosa in Örebro county. Now that this information is known the researcher can look up the Lutheran Church Records by the name of the parish.
The Swedish Postal Guide (Svensk Ortförteckning) is available at the Family History Library and has the call number of FHL 948.5 E8sv.
Geografiskt - Statistiskt Handlexikon öfver Sverige
This gazetter, published 1882-1883, is excellent for showing the spellings of Swedish place names prior to the spelling reform, which took place in 1906. As a result of the 1906 spelling reform, "c" became "k", "z" became "s", "w" became "v", "q" became "k", and places with an initial or interior "e" changed to "Ä" or "ä". Below are some examples of the 1906 Swedish spelling reform.
C became K Carl became Karl
Z became S Zidzel became Sidsel
W became V Wilhelm became Vilhelm
J became I Jngerd became Ingerd
Q became K Qvistberg became Kvistberg
E e became Ä ä Elfsborg became Älvsborg
Interior “f” became “v” or was dropped all together. For place names beginning with “Hv” or “Hw”, the initial H was dropped. Some examples follow:
F became V or wa