I would like a copy of my Grandfathers Birth Certificate.  All I know
is that he was born in the middle of Sweden in the farming country, 
He was born on June 7th 1847. Do not even know the names of his
parents. Am told that he left for the United States either in the year
of 1865 or 1866 from Oslo and arrived in the port of New York.  He
came with his brother Carl I think. His Swedish name was Johann August
Carlsson but he Americanized by changing it to John August Carlson, 
He settled in Minnesota and his brother Carl settled in California.
John married my Grandmother in 1880.  Her name was Annette Ambule. 
Would it be possible to find a Birth Certicate with only this litted
bit of information.  Have a photo of an older man by the name of Carl
Magnuson Carlson but do not know if this the Father of John Carlson or
not. Would like this to be answered in English but will take whatever
I can get.  Any helop or advice will be greatly appreciated.  Yours
with esteem. Annette Carlson Tucker.

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Request for Question Clarification by scriptor-ga on 05 Apr 2004 13:45 PDT

Dear rosetta,

Obtaining any document on your grandfather's birth would be extremely
complicated. This is so for two reasons:

- In the mid-19th century, old naming habits were still in use in
rural Sweden. There were no family names as we know them; rather,
surnames were derived from the parents' first names. "Carlsson", for
example, means "son of Carl". However, the father of Carlsson may have
had a completely different surname, like Thorstensson - because he was
the son of one Thorsten. Under this circumstances, tracing ancestral
lines is anything but easy, as you surely can imagine. To make things
worse, I found out that the combination "Johann August Carlsson" is
not rare, to say the least.

- Before 1991 (!), there was no civil registration in Sweden. Births
and deaths were registered exclusively by the Lutheran State Church in
their parishes. So all vital records before 1991 are scattered all
over Sweden, in the parish registers.

However, there is hope for you: The University of Umeå (Sweden) has
access to microfiche of all vital records church registers in Sweden.
They are deciphering and registering the data from the records, and
they offer professional lookup of genealogical information. Please
read more about it here:
http://www.ddb.umu.se/presentation/slforskn_eng.htm

I can, alas, not offer you an answer. But I hope that the University
experts can help you finding information on your grandfathers origin.

Regards,
Scriptor

Dear Rosetta,

I'm living in Sweden and I don't agree at all with the answer above
from Google scriptor. Sweden is well known for finest and best
population records in the world, so if anywhere, it is here you can
find information about some person easiest.
It is true that Lutheran State Church held all records until 1991 but
all those records are not spread all over the kingdom, they are
instead stored in state institution called Skattemyndigheten. This
institution took over the job from Lutheran State Church and are now
keeping the population records. Since beginning of 19th century,
Sweden introduced a so-called personal id number for each citizen. The
number is composed of your date of birth and four control numbers. It
is very easy to find out everything about a person if you have his
personal id number. Anyway your grandfather didn't had such a number
for sure so my advice to you is to contact Swedish embassy in USA and
they can help you to get in touch with "Skattemyndigheten"
(www.skattemyndigheten.se) in Sweden who can check in the records
(each office has a record for whole country) after your grandfather. I
am sure that your grandfather was token in the church record from that
time and it is not true as Google wrote that your grandfather?s father
had a different name, this tradition is usual in Island not in Sweden
since centuries ago. Carlsson is very usual name in Sweden and from
the decryption you gave in your letter I think your father lived in
part of Sweden called Småland (pronounce Smoland). During 18th century
most of USA emigrants came from this part of country.
We also have a lot of organisations in Sweden who can help you free of
charge to locate your yor grandfather.
I wish you luck and if you need any help you are welcome to contact me
on pedja@spray.se

Regards

Pedja

Sorry the right adress to skattemyndigheten is http://skatteverket.se/