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Arkiv Digital AD AB
Logotype since February 2015.[1] Motto: “Your key to historical knowledge.”
Screenshot
Type of businessLimited liability company, privately-owned
Type of site
Digitalized historical sources and name indexes for genealogists and historians online
Available inSwedish, English
HeadquartersLyrestad, Sweden
Founder(s)Mikael Karlsson (born in 1971)
ChairmanJan Aronson, Täby
CEODavid Lundgren, Gothenburg
IndustryOnline platform for genealogical and historical research. Family tree builder.
ProductsSubscription service for digitized historic sources on the internet
RevenueSEK 43 628 000 (2023)
Employees27 (average 2023)
URLarkivdigital.net
RegistrationYes
Launched2005; 19 years ago (2005)

Arkiv Digital AD AB is a Swedish company that produces and provides color photographs of historical records, along with digital indexes of names for historical research. These resources cover a time span from the 1600s to the 1900s. The company’s primary clientele includes genealogists, historians, local history researchers, libraries and associations.

Arkiv Digital operates as a privately-held limited liability company with its headquarters located in Lyrestad, within the Mariestad Municipality, Sweden.

The Family Tree Magazine has for over a decade, including in 2024, listed Arkiv Digital as one of the world’s top 101 websites for genealogists.[2]

Photographed historical documents

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Since its founding in 2005, Arkiv Digital’s competitive advantage has been the ability to offer newly photographed color images of Swedish historical records. Unlike its competitors, who mainly offer black-and-white images digitized from microfilms and microfiche.[3] Color photographs enhance readability, particularly when dealing with discolored documents or text that has been crossed out.[4]

Arkiv Digital photographs historical documents in public archival institutions across Sweden, including the National Archives of Sweden and its regional archives, the Military Archives, and the city archives of Stockholm and Malmö.[5][6] Their image database, as of the end of 2023, contains nearly 97 million color images of historical documents, many of which are spreads.[7]

In general, the primary sources for Swedish genealogical research are the church books (parish registers) kept in the parish church archives, now stored in the regional archives under the National Archives. This is because up to 1991, most of the Swedish population registration in Sweden was legally managed by the Lutheran state church on a per parish basis.[8]

Among the key types of records Arkiv Digital has photographed are the following:

  • Church books: Virtually all Swedish church books up to approximately 1950.[9]
  • Swedish-American church books from ten states in the USA.[9]
  • Estate inventories (bouppteckningar): All estate inventories up to around 1960, complete with name indexes.[9] These inventories specify the heirs of the deceased and may include additional genealogical information.
  • The mantals tax records (mantalslängder) 1642–1820. These were created annually per parish. They list the taxes levied on individuals meeting specific criteria, primarily based on age.[9][10]
  • Military rolls dating from 1620 onward, along with naval rolls, general muster rolls, and service records.
  • Genealogical collections: A significant portion of older genealogies in the Swedish House of Nobility, spanning the 1600s to the 1800s, and the entire Genealogica collection in the National Archives, with genealogies compiled during the 1500s and 1600s.[9]

The image database also includes judicial documents, mostly court records and land registration protocols, as well as a considerable number of other archival series, such as prisoner rolls, and archives related to “seaman’s houses” (sjömanshus, state institutions for mustering and registering seamen in mercantile shipping).[9] Among local materials is an extensive collection of digitized historical records from the regional archive of the Swedish-speaking Åland in Mariehamn, Finland.[11]

This screenshot from Arkiv Digital’s subscription service shows a spread in the Birth and Christening records 1864–1893 for the parish of Ramsele, Sweden.

Name indexes

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Arkiv Digital has since 2016 been launching a number of large name indexes to historical records. By the end of 2023, the total number of index entries reached 262.3 million.[7]

Among the key name indexes are:[12]

  • The Swedish Population (Befolkningen i Sverige, BiS) 1800–1947: This is the largest name index, containing over 133 million entries. It covers the entire Swedish population based on catechismal household records (husförhörslängder) and congregation records (församlingsböcker). (Created in collaboration with MyHeritage.)
  • Census of Sweden (Sveriges befolkning) 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985 and 1990, covering the entire Swedish population these years.
  • Indexes of births (1750–1840), marriages (1750–1840), and deaths (1750–1799) for all Swedish counties.
  • Index of digitized estate inventories, with nearly 6.2 million entries.
  • The Stockholm Population (Befolkningen i Stockholm) 1945.
  • Swedes in the USA (Svenskar i USA) 1940.
  • Index of all Swedish emigrants departing from Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, and Helsingborg. (Created in collaboration with Ancestry.com.)
  • Index of general muster rolls 1660–1887, with approximately 4.37 million searchable entries from the Military Archives for infantry and cavalry.
  • Index of conscription cards (stamkort): Around 2.4 million entries for men enlisted between 1902 and 1950.

All of these index entries – except for Census of Sweden for the years 1950 and 1960 – have direct links to the original sources. For subsequent years of Census of Sweden, the indexes themselves are the original, digital sources from the Swedish authorities.[12]

History

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Staff at Arkiv Digital are digitizing historical records at the Regional archives in Gothenburg in 2013. Foto: Håkan Skogsjö.

Origins and business idea

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In 2004, Mikael Karlsson in Mariestad started the business that later became Arkiv Digital. An investment memorandum from 2008 summarizes the origins: “The initiative to establish the company Arkiv Digital was taken by Mikael Karlsson, Gabriel Wallgren, Magnus Näslund and others in the summer of 2005. One year prior, Mikael Karlsson had already started taking digital photographs of the church books for Bohuslän county; Gabriel Wallgren, with years of genealogical research experience, had been a partner of Genline [AB], where Magnus Näslund had been working as a software engineer and was a partner as well. In the fall of 2005, their cooperation was formalized, leading to the establishment of the limited liability company Arkiv Digital AD AB. In the summer of 2008, Arkiv Digital AD AB merged with HH DigiArkiv AB (formerly GH Microscan, founded in 2001) and acquired all the shares in the company. This was an important step in creating a genealogy research company for the future.” (Translated from Swedish.)[13]

The business idea was to “digitize historical source material with the highest possible quality using the latest technical equipment available and sell these digitized images to genealogists, associations, libraries, and other researchers.”[14][15]

Distribution and growth

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Initially, CDs were used to distribute the photographed documents. However, Arkiv Digital soon developed its own image format and software for internet distribution of images.[16] This image viewing program integrated images, archival information, and catalog entries (mainly sourced from the National Archives Database, NAD), with images registered down to the page level.[17] In 2007, Arkiv Digital launched a subscription service, allowing researchers to access the company’s entire image database via the internet.[14] This service quickly became the company’s primary source of revenue, a status it still holds. (According to the 2023 annual report, 98.4% of net turnover is from subscription sales, while 0.8% comes from book sales.)[7]

In 2011, Arkiv Digital reported a positive result for the first time.[18] The company received the financial newspaper Dagens Industri’s “Gasellpriset” (“Gazelle Award”) for rapid and profitable growth in 2013, 2014, and 2015.[19][20]

Diversifying

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In the early years, Arkiv Digital mainly served Swedish genealogists. The early annual reports emphasized that it was “founded by genealogists for genealogists,” and the company’s focus was on documents in church archives.[21] By the end of 2011, Arkiv Digital achieved its goal of digitizing the most relevant types of church books for genealogists, covering records up to around 1900.[22][23] This achievement allowed the company to offer photographs of the same church books as the then competitors Genline and SVAR, but with the added benefit of color. (SVAR was the department within the National Archives responsible for digitizing archival materials. These were made available on the digital platform SVAR, for a subscription fee.)

Around 2013, Arkiv Digital started broadening its range of source materials to appeal to new user groups, and the company began marketing itself in other Nordic countries and in the USA to diversify beyond reliance on the Swedish market.[24][18] In 2014, the company began adding a number of features that were missing on the SVAR platform.[25] One of these was the service called “order photography”, introduced in 2015. With this service, users could pay to have specific volumes digitized and added to the image database.[26] Another example of diversifying was the acquisition in 2016 of several million older aerial photographs, depicting farms and houses of all kinds across Sweden, from the company Svenska Aero-Bilder AB. These photographs date from the 1950s onward[27][28] and were released in 2021, organized by map locations.[18]

After some years of public debate, the digitized materials on the SVAR platform became a completely tax-funded service, free of charge, on February 1, 2018, and the platform was renamed “Digital Research Room.” That meant the National Archives became a strong competitor of Arkiv Digital.

The main clientele of Arkiv Digital are still the genealogists, and Arkiv Digital has since 2009 been the main sponsor for Släktforskardagarna, a Nordic, annual genealogy fair described as one of the largest assemblies for genealogists in the world, according to the company’s annual reports.

New trend results in name indexes

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Screenshot showing the results from searching for Anna Britta Darelius in Arkiv Digital's digital name index for estate inventories (2022), with a direct link to the corresponding photographed archival document.

In the 2014 annual report, Arkiv Digital highlighted a new trend among younger users: They are less inclined to sift through large volumes of documents and expect instead easy searchability; otherwise, they tend to give up. As a strategic move, the company started creating name indexes for various types of historical records. In early 2016, Arkiv Digital could offer the indexes Census of Sweden for 1950 and 1960 respectively, and The Swedish Population (“Befolkningen i Sverige”) for 1880–1920.[29] The same year, Arkiv Digital initiated collaborations with various genealogy associations to create searchable name indexes for all of Sweden’s birth, marriage, and death records.[28][30][31][32][33][18] The annual report of 2016 states that the three legs of Arkiv Digital are the archival materials, the indexes, and the user interface.[28]

The Covid-19 pandemic heavily limited the company’s ability to photograph archival materials at state archives. According to the annual reports, much of the energy was instead spent on expanding the name indexes and improving the user interface.

Integrating family trees with historical records

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Screenshot to show users can build their own family tree on the Arkiv Digital webbsite, either manually or by uploading a gedcom file. Each person can then be linked to matching archival records and name index records in the entire Arkiv Digital corpus.

In November 2019, Arkiv Digital added the feature of creating cloud-based family trees, manually or by uploading a gedcom file. The purpose of this was to connect subscribers’ genealogical research directly with the company’s digitized historical records and index entries.[32][33]

Book publishing

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In 2019, Arkiv Digital published Håkan Skogsjö’s handbook Släktforskning på riktigt, with an expanded edition 2021 and a further expanded one in 2024.[34] For English-speaking researchers, an English version titled Explore your Swedish heritage, was released in 2020,[35] followed by an expanded edition in 2023. The handbook focuses on Arkiv Digital’s digitized archival materials and name indexes while also describing traditional archives and research methodology.[36]

AI technology?

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In 2023, Arkiv Digital began exploring whether AI technology could be used to transcribe older handwritten texts,[7] since many young people struggle to decipher handwritten texts even from the 1900s.

References

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  1. ^ Press release: "Nytt år, ny logotyp (New year, new logotype)" (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital AD AB. 15 February 2015. Archived from the original on 17 May 2015. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  2. ^ Fryxell, David A. (2024). "Best European Genealogy Websites (part of the list "101 Best Genealogy Websites")". Yankee Publishing, Inc. Archived from the original on 15 June 2024. Retrieved 15 June 2024. Find your Swedish ancestors in the most-complete collection of Swedish church books, military records and more—over 97 million full-color scans—at this subscription site (about $37 per month). A growing collection of searchable indexes makes it easier than ever to get results. – David A. Fryxell, Aurora (Colorado), is the founder of Family Tree Magazine and the author of (among many other works) The Family Tree Scandinavian Genealogy Guide: How to Trace Your Ancestors in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway (published by Family Tree Books in 2019, ISBN 9781440300752).
  3. ^ The now defunct Swedish company Genline AB scanned the Swedish church books from used microfiche copies of the black-and-white microfilms that the Swedish company Rekolid produced from 1948 for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In 2010, Genline was acquired by Ancestry.com. "Ancestry.com to Acquire Sweden's Genline.se". Ancestry.com. 14 June 2010. Archived from the original on 28 May 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2024. – The National Archives of Sweden is currently (2024) taking new color photographs of the 20th-century church books, previously only available in black-and-white. Generally, though, the National Archives has different priorities than Arkiv Digital regarding what to digitize.
  4. ^ Classon, Roland (28 January 2008). "Arkiv Digital ny uppstickare (Arkiv Digital new challenger)". Helsingborgs Dagblad (in Swedish). Sydsvenska Dagbladet AB. ISSN 1103-9388. Archived from the original on 19 September 2013. Retrieved 15 February 2015.; – Classon, Roland (5 November 2012). "Arkiv Digital tar ny sats mot framtiden (Arkiv Digital takes a new approach to the future)". Helsingborgs Dagblad (in Swedish). Sydsvenska Dagbladet AB. ISSN 1103-9388. Archived from the original on 28 September 2013. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
  5. ^ "Årsredovisning 2012 (Annual Report 2012)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital AD AB. 22 April 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  6. ^ "Product Catalog October 2022" (PDF). Arkiv Digital AD AB. October 2022. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 May 2024. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  7. ^ a b c d "Årsredovisning 2023 Arkiv Digital AD AB (Annual Report 2023)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital AD AB. 5 April 2024. p. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 May 2024. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  8. ^ Parish priests were required by the Swedish church law of 1686 (which came into effect in 1688 and was in force, with amendments, until 1888) to register births/christenings, marriages/banns of marriage, deaths/burials and people entering or leaving the parish in such church books. From the latter part of the 18th century, the household records – books detailing the annual and mandatory catechism examinations per household (“husförhörslängder”), where each individual publically had to demonstrate their knowledge of all sections in Martin Luther’s Small Catechism – began spanning between five or ten years per volume. They came to function as a compilation of the other church books on household level, with some additional data, like a continuous census. In 1895, the household records were replaced by congregation records (församlingsböcker), with similar information and format.
  9. ^ a b c d e f "Produktkatalog Augusti 2023 (Product Catalog August 2023)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital AD AB. 16 August 2023. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 April 2024. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  10. ^ A large number of further tax records and rolls from the 1500s and 1600s, such as land registers (jordeböcker) and annual tithing registers (tiondelängder) per parish, are available for free on the National Archives’ digital platform. "Digital Research Room (Digitala forskarsalen)" (in Swedish). National Archives of Sweden. Archived from the original on 27 March 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  11. ^ Skogsjö, Håkan. "Mycket material från Åland hos Arkiv Digital (A Lot of Material from Åland at Arkiv Digital)". Släkthistoriskt Forum (in Swedish). 2015 (1). Solna, Sweden: Sveriges Släktforskarförbund: 50, 51. ISSN 0280-3984.The types of archival material photographed for Åland are church books, mantals tax registers, estate inventories, land registration protocols, bankruptcy acts, and maps.
  12. ^ a b Skogsjö, Håkan (2020). Explore Your Swedish Heritage. Lyrestad: Arkiv Digital. pp. 13–15, 53–61. ISBN 978-91-981999-2-5.
  13. ^ Gabriel Wallgren (CEO) (September 2008). "Sammandrag av Investment Memorandum. Nyemission september 2008 (Summary of Investment Memorandum. New Share Issue September 2008)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 January 2009. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  14. ^ a b "Arkiv Digital. Årsredovisning 2007 (Arkiv Digital. Annual Report 2007)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 9 June 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  15. ^ Press release. "Mikael Karlsson ny VD i ArkivDigital (Mikael Karlsson new CEO for Arkiv Digital)" (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 15 June 2012. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 1 June 2024. Mikael Karlsson is 40 years old, and it was his interest in genealogy and a need for better copies [of church books] that gave birth to Arkiv Digital. Arkiv Digital began as a hobby project, the project grew, and in the fall of 2005 Mikael, together with others, founded the limited liability company Arkiv Digital AD AB. Mikael was a member of the company board 2005–2007 and 2010–2014, and his main task has been as responsible for the production at the different archives.
  16. ^ "Arkiv Digital. Årsredovisning 2006 (Arkiv Digital. Annual Report 2006)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 14 May 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  17. ^ "Arkiv Digital". Wiki-Rötter (in Swedish). Sveriges Släktforskarförbund. 10 November 2022 [February 2, 2015]. Archived from the original on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  18. ^ a b c d The aerial photographs were acquired in 2016, and the digitization was completed in 2021. "Årsredovisning 2021 Arkiv Digital AD AB (Annual Report 2021)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital AD AB. 3 May 2022. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  19. ^ Press release: "Gasellföretag för tredje året i rad (Gasell company for the third year in a row)" (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 26 November 2015. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  20. ^ Thunberg, Ida (7 August 2015). "Släktforskningen förgrenar sig (Genealogy is branching out) (paywall)". Dagens Industri (in Swedish). Stockholm: Bonnier News. ISSN 0346-640X.
  21. ^ "Arkiv Digital AD AB – Årsredovisning 2010 (Arkiv Digital AD AB – Annual report 2010)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 13 April 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  22. ^ Press release: "Glädjebesked: Snart fler moderna kyrkböcker (Good news: Soon more modern church books)" (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 22 January 2016. Archived from the original on 13 February 2016. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  23. ^ The most used Swedish church books by genealogists are primarily volumes with the following notations in the church archives: A I (household records) and A II (congregation records), B (moving records), C (birth books), E (marriage books), F (death books), H (attachments), K (parish meeting protocols) and L (church accounts).
  24. ^ "Vi satsar för framtiden. Årsredovisning 2013. Arkiv Digital AD AB (We invest in the future. Annual report 2020. Arkiv Digital AD AB)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 28 April 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 April 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  25. ^ "Mot nya tider. Årsredovisning 2014 Arkiv Digital AD AB (Towards new times. Annual report 2014. Arkiv Digital AD AB)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 1 May 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  26. ^ Skogsjö, Håkan. "Ny tjänst: Du beställer, vi fotograferar (New service: You order, we photograph)". Släkthistoriskt Forum (in Swedish). 2015 (1). Sveriges Släktforskarförbund: 52. ISSN 0280-3984.
  27. ^ Press release: "ArkivDigital förvärvar miljontals flygbilder (Arkiv Digital acquires millions of aerial photos)" (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 24 January 2017. Archived from the original on 23 March 2017.
  28. ^ a b c "Titta vi flyger! Årsredovisning 2016 Arkiv Digital AD AB (Look! We're flying! Annual report 2016 Arkiv Digital AD AB)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 7 April 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  29. ^ "Grunden är lagd. Årsredovisning 2015 Arkiv Digital AD AB (The foundation is laid. Annual report 2015 Arkiv Digital AD AB)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 1 May 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 June 2024. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  30. ^ "Mot högre mål. Årsredovisning 2017. Arkiv Digital AD AB (Towards higher goals. Annual report 2017. Arkiv Digital AD AB)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 9 April 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  31. ^ "Vi breddar oss. Årsredovisning 2018. Arkiv Digital AD AB (We are expanding. Annual report 2018. Arkiv Digital AD AB)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 9 April 2019. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  32. ^ a b "Störst vill bli större. Årsredovisning 2019. Arkiv Digital AD AB (The biggest wants to be bigger. Annual report 2019. Arkiv Digital AD AB)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 28 April 2020. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  33. ^ a b "Full fart framåt. Årsredovisning 2020. Arkiv Digital AD AB (Full speed ahead! Annual report 2020. Arkiv Digital AD AB)" (PDF) (in Swedish). Arkiv Digital. 21 May 2021. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  34. ^ Skogsjö, Håkan (2024). Släktforskning på riktigt. Revised and expanded edition. Lyrestad: Arkiv Digital. ISBN 9789198199956.
  35. ^ Skogsjö, Håkan (2020). Explore your Swedish heritage. Lyrestad: Arkiv Digital. ISBN 978-91-981999-2-5.
  36. ^ Lundholm, Michael. Lundholm, Michael (ed.). "Ett släktforskarbibliotek 1–6 (A genealogy library 1–6)". Svensk Genealogisk Tidskrift (Swedish Genealogy Magazine) (in Swedish). Vol. 2022, no. 2. Solna, Sweden: Genealogiska Föreningen. p. 123. ISSN 1654-1731. The handbook is in my opinion the best introductory handbook to genealogy that has so far been written. ('Handboken är enligt min mening den bästa introducerande handbok i släktforskning som hittills skrivits.')
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