The Rise and Fall of New Sweden
Swedes arrived in America much earlier than you might think. Jealous of the Dutch colonial outposts in America, the Swedish government set out to establish its own New Sweden. It hired Peter Minuit, who had led the founding of New Netherland for the Dutch before being dismissed in an internal dispute, and set up the Swedish West India Company. In March 1638, two ships under Minuit’s command, the Kalmar Nyckeland Fogel Grip, arrived at the site of today’s Wilmington, Delaware, with 50 colonists. They named the settlement Fort Christina, after the young Swedish queen, and Reverend Reorus Porkillus established the first Lutheran congregation in America there.
Finding Your Danes Online
While reviewing the last time I wrote about Danish genealogy for Family Tree Magazine in preparation for my article on that topic in the October-November 2019 issue, I was struck by how many Danish records are now online. Originally, my article referenced the various records available on microfilm. Now, however, most of those resources have been digitized and many of them are even searchable. In fact, when I was researching my cousin’s Danish ancestors, I was able to go back hundreds of years without ever having to squint at old-fashioned microfilm. Let’s take a quick tour of some of the key records you can click on…
Police Escort?
Emigration from Denmark was facilitated by the inauguration of steamship service to the United States, cutting the arduous voyage to 10 days. One source claims that a single ship, the Frederick VIII, transported more than half a million Danes and other Scandinavians to America. To protect people from being conned by unscrupulous emigration agents, the Copenhagen police were given oversight of all overseas tickets.
Scandinavians in the Civil War
The only non-English-speaking Union regiment in the Civil War, the 15th Wisconsin Volunteers, was formed by Scandinavian immigrants. It was organized and commanded by Norwegian Hans Christian Heg from Muskego, and included both Norwegians and Swedes.