Recently I let my MyHeritage subscription lapse. Instead I am going to take a break from active genealogy research, assuming a passive role. I will continue to respond to requests and messages, maybe not instantly but from time to time.

Mats

My interests in genealogy is mostly centered in the areas where the families of my mother and father come from. My mothers family comes mostly from the western part of the southernmost province of Skåne (latin Scania), while the origins of my fathers family is centered in the southern part of the province of Halland. Both of these provinces used to belong to the kingdom of Denmark, but were conquered by the kingdom of Sweden in a series of wars around the middle of the 17th century.

The wars causes researchers of today a lot of problems since records are often lost during times of great upheaval. Almost all written sources earlier than the middle of the 17th century were in fact lost during the wars at this time, which means that the trail to your ancestors in this part of the world dries up around this point.

Some background and history of the two provinces of Halland and Skåne (Scania) can be found here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scania

The province of Skåne used to be divided in two administrative units called Län, similar to counties. These were named Malmöhus Län and Kristianstad Län. When entering records I usually add "(M)" for Malmöhus Län and "(L)" for Kristianstad Län after the name of the parish. A list of the letters commonly used to represent a Län in Sweden is found here; https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A4nsbokstav (Swedish)

Below is a timeline of historical events which has affected the civilian population in the provinces of Halland and Skåne that may go some ways of explaining the high death toll that you may encounter when researching your family tree. This list is short at the moment and my intention is to fill it up as I come across of sources.

The Great Northern war lasted from 1700-1721. During this war there was an outbreak of the plague which severely decimated the population. Much more so than the war itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_War_plague_outbreak

During the Great Northern war the province of Scania, as many others in the region, was severely affected by a succession of measles epidemic, smallpox outbreak, typhoid, crop failure, and to top it off an invasion by the Danish army. So if in your family tree you see a lot of deaths piling up at around this time, one or more of the calamities listed here is likely the reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_War_plague_outbreak#Sc...

My DNA profile; Y-DNA R-YP431 mtDNA U4a2

Mitt data-abonnemang på MyHeritage tog nyligen slut, vilket gör att jag inte längre kan se matchande profiler på MyHeritage, eller matchningar från andra källor som ArkivDigital (husförhörslängder, födelse- och döds-, begravningsnotiser). Efter att ha skapat drygt 50000 profiler så känns det som att det är på tiden att jag ägnar mig åt andra saker för en stund.

Så, från nu intar jag en mer passiv roll. Tar fortfarande emot mejl, notifieringar, och begäranden och agerar utefter dessa, från tid till annan. Men annat än undantagsvis tänker jag inte spendera någon större mängd tid på att arbeta med genealogi - tills vidare.

Mats