Maps

When I throw out counties or parishes or farms in these posts, they might mean nothing other than we know that one of our ancestors was from that part of Sweden. Today, I want to show through the map below the general areas where both the Linns and Olofsons came from.

Sweden counties on the left; Sweden provinces on the right

As background, the map on the left, showing the counties, is what researchers use in modern times when referencing where their ancestors are from. The map on the right, showing the provinces, is not used today but is an important tool. You can probably see that a province might incorporate all, or part, of several counties. And, because this is how places were identified long ago, you might see someone refer to a home area with the province name.

For reference, Stockholm would be the AB in the map on the left (in yellow).

Starting with the Olofsons and Barquists (in blue), they came primarily from Gävleborg County which is labeled with an X on the county map. But if you look to the provinces on the right, you can see that Hälsingland is the province that incorporated much of Gävleborg.

Some of the Olofson line also comes from the letter Z, Jämtland, and a few from other surrounding counties.

Moving to the Linns and Lundblads  (in red), they came from southern Sweden. On the county map, the letter F (Jönköping) and the letter E (Östergötland) are the counties where most of our Linn side came from. And when you compare that to the province map on the right, most of that area is known as Smäland, and some records and some people refer to Smäland when talking about our ancestral homes.

Because there are so many parishes within these counties that our family is from, it's difficult to put maps up that would be easy to see. I'd suggest a Google search for a parish to see where it is and also to learn a bit about these parishes. For example, Amot in Gävleborg County is an iron ore parish and many of our Barquist ancestors were involved in that industry. In Smäland  province, our Linn ancestors farmed if they were able to clear the rocky terrain, and there are many lakes that supplied food and trades for them.


I hope this helps pinpoint where our families were from. And I do have detailed parish maps if anyone would like to have a copy emailed to them.