My Ancestry in Sweden, Norway, & Denmark
Primarily located in: Denmark, Sweden & Norway. Also found in: England, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Germany, Iceland, NetherlandsThe Sweden Norway & Denmark region emerged from glacial ice as lands of lakes and islands, mountains and plains. Though the countries were often at war, the people share a common Norse heritage that includes elements of language, religion, and art, though they eventually developed cultures of their own. Situated along the western boundary of the Baltic Sea, relative geographic isolation did not stop the Swedes and the Danes from influencing culture, trade, and politics in Europe and around the globe.
Stone Age Svealand
Sweden’s common heritage with Norway and Denmark extends back to the Stone Age (9,000-1,800 BCE), when Eurasian hunter-gatherers spread northward from the continent. During the Bronze Age, they formed clans, improved their farming techniques and tools, and began raising animals. People in the north remained hunter-gatherers much longer than settlers in the south.
Boatbuilding skills among southern communities enabled contact with mainland Europe. Artifacts from burial mounds show that settlements like Skåne (historically part of Denmark) and Västergötland traded furs, metals, religious customs, technologies, and even people with Germanic and Roman populations down the Danube.
They were also united by language: Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish all come from Old Norse, which was called dönsk tunga (“Danish tongue”) and evolved around the time of the Viking era. Swedish and Danish come from Old East Norse while Norwegian and Icelandic grew out of Old West Norse.
Varangian Vikings
For the most part, early-Iron Age Scandinavians lived in independent clans, content with owning land, raising their families, and worshiping a pantheon of Norse gods. However, the Scandinavian Iron Age (500 BCE-800 CE.) paved the way for the Viking Age (793-1066 CE), an era when ships full of Norsemen (“men from the north”) set out to raid, trade with, and settle new lands. Their longships were state of the art for the times: light, fast, and able to navigate both oceans and rivers.
Consolidation and Unity
In the 11th century, Sweden’s King Olof Skötkonung (my 32nd Great Grandfather) united Svealand (the core region of modern Sweden) and Götaland (southern Sweden). Despite crowning a king, Sweden remained fragmented, with no common law or uniform taxation. Swedes on the mainland were more unified as family units than politically. About this time, the dialects spoken in Denmark and Sweden began to diverge into separate languages.
The process of unifying Sweden continued through the Middle Ages. The Kalmar Union (1397-1523) bound Denmark, Norway, and Sweden under the rule of a single Scandinavian monarch for a time. Sweden participated in the Germanic Hanseatic League from the 1400s to the 1600s, which improved trade, and Germanic and Finnish migration to Sweden increased during this period. Sweden, like its neighbors, also lost thousands to the Great Death, and as lands lost their owners, a feudal nobility emerged that seized vast swaths of the countryside.
Provincial Svensk to Superpower Sverige
In 1523 King Gustav Vasa spearheaded Sweden’s war of liberation from Denmark, ending the Kalmar Union. Gustav’s rule was unparalleled in Swedish history: he ended feudalism, empowered local landowners, and helped found modern Sweden. Under King Gustavus Adolphus (my 12th cousin), Sweden became a European military superpower, and Sweden dominated the Baltic region during much of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). Scania came under Swedish control in 1658, though Denmark and Sweden would continue to fight over the region for another 150 years.
Growing Pains
The Swedish kingdom was a global superpower between 1648 and 1721. After winning wars against Denmark, Russia, and Poland and securing land all over Europe, Sweden tried its hand at colonization, sending settlers to the New World. Between 1638 and 1655, Swedes settled what was known as “New Sweden” along the Delaware River. Most Swedes at the time were independent farmers, but many found jobs in a growing trade with England and the Baltic countries, working in lumber, saw, and textile mills and metal foundries.
Sweden’s expansion proved unsustainable, and one by one, Sweden ceded her territories. By the 19th century, Sweden had lost everything but Norway, which declared its independence in 1905. Meanwhile, between 1860 and 1910, Sweden was becoming an industrial society. As Sweden modernized, communal villages turned into privately owned farms. Swedes migrated to cities, where work was available, while others left in the face of crop failures and lack of land. Over a million Swedes populated cities across Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Texas in the United States. Others went to Australia, South Africa, and Canada.
Sweden Today
Sweden today is a progressive, anti-fascist, social democratic nation. Their society is increasingly transnational—especially in the Øresund region where a bridge now links Sweden and Denmark. However, despite its international reputation, Sweden’s population remains very “Swedish,” with a deep connection to its country’s culture and geography.
My Life's Journey 