Old newspapers published in America and back in Scandinavia can yield clues about your Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian ancestors.
Although Scandinavian immigrants were as poor—or more so—as other ethnic arrivals from Europe, with relatively humble occupations, they excelled in literacy. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden all had official state Lutheran churches, which required that all children be taught to read and write. So when Scandinavians arrived in America they enjoyed an unusually high level of literacy, at least in their native languages.
That in turn encouraged a flowering of Scandinavian-language newspapers, magazines, and other publishing enterprises. More than a thousand Swedish-language publications were founded in the United States. Some of the most important Scandinavian periodicals, such as the Danish Bienand the Norwegian Decorah-Posten, achieved wide circulation and became de facto national newspapers for their ethnic communities.
Copies of some of these newspapers are in the collections of historical societies and university libraries, especially in the upper Midwest, and may be valuable for learning more about your ancestors and their lives in America. You can search for holdings, including by language, at the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America project. A few titles, such as the Norwegian Minneapolis Tidende, the Swedish Skaffaren, and the Danish St. Paul Tidende, all from Minnesota, have been digitized by the project.
You may also be able to research your ancestors in newspapers published back in Scandinavia. You can search a collection of more than 35 million digitized pages from Danish newspapers. Access to newspapers printed before 1919—6.1 million pages—is free; later newspapers can be searched online but are accessible only at the Royal Danish Library and the Danish Film Institute.
In addition to newspapers published for Swedish immigrants in America, those published in Sweden may contain information about your ancestors. Some of these are available in subscription collections online, including:
Online collections of Norwegian newspapers are scarcer, but keep in mind that Norway was part of Sweden—and Denmark before that—during peak periods of emigration. So your Norwegian ancestors (at least more prominent ones) might be found in those countries’ periodicals.