Sweden: The Parish (Socken)Edit This Page

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The original word in Swedish for parish was socken. The socken is a geographical area with fixed boundaries and responsibility for all the people living within the the parish. The parish was the basic unit for record keeping of vital information (birth, marriages, and deaths) for the people of Sweden until 1991. At this time the responsibility was transferred to a civil authority. Knowing what parish your ancestor lived in is vital to your Swedish family history research.



The parishes were formed in early medieval times when people would come together to build a church in a certain area. Many of these medieval parishes with their medieval churches still exist in the oldest populated areas of Sweden. As forests were cleared, new land cultivated, and population grew, new parishes were created or old ones divided. When a place grew to become a bigger town the work load for the minister increased necessitating a division of the parish. In rural areas the minister would keep track of the residents of the parish by organizing the parish into villages (by) and/or farms (gård or hemman). Each village and farm had a name and sometimes also a number (especially in the southern Sweden). In northern Sweden, parishes were larger geographically than in the south where there was a higher population density.
At the end of the nineteenth century there were about 2,000 parishes in Sweden with the majority of the population living in rural parishes. The clergy of the rural parishes played a major role in the lives of their parishioners. They knew those living in their parish, officiated in major life events (christenings, marriages, and burials), kept a record of these events, taught them the word of God, and each year held the household examination with them. When a person wanted to move from a parish, he was supposed to obtain a moving certificate from his minister before leaving the parish. After arriving at the new parish, the person was would give the moving certificate to the local minister.


Cities and towns had their own parishes. Small towns would have one parish for the community. Larger cities would have multiple parishes within the same city. With urbanization the number and size of city parishes grew. The clergy in the city had difficulty keeping track of all those living within their boundaries and were unable to maintain a close relationship with all their parishioners. In the city some ethnic groups formed their own parish (congregation) such as the German merchants in Stockholm. Military garrisons in some cities had their own parish. Depending on the city, sometimes there is a main parish for the residents of a city (stadsförsamling) with a “rural” parish (landsförsamling) for the residents living in rural areas around the city.

Kommun and församling


Officials of the Parish

Clergy in the Parish:

  • Komminister: curate, an assistant to the minister

Offices held by laity:



  • Sometimes adjoining parishes were linked together as mother parish (moderförsamling) and annex parish or parishes (annexförsamling). The vicar or minister (kyrkoherde) lived in the mother parish and there might be a chaplain (komminister) in the annex parish. The church records of the mother parish and its annex parish/parishes were often kept in common with separate sections for the different parishes. If you don't find a birth, marriage, or death entry in the records of a mother parish, check the records of the annex parish.

For a list of the parishes of Sweden see:


  • Socken i Sverige, Swedish Wikipedia 2009. http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socken_i_Sverige.



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