Sweden was called the “mother of peoples” by early historians and was the home of many of the barbarian tribes that overran the Roman Empire. It is the fifth largest country in Europe by area. An independent Swedish state emerged during the 12th century. In 1397, Sweden joined the Kalmar Union with Norway and Denmark, which joined the three kingdoms under a single monarch. Sweden left the union in 1523. Sweden ‘s involvement in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) led to the expansion of its territories and the formation of the Swedish Empire. Between 1750 and 1850 the population doubled, and mass emigration was the result to avoid famine and rebellion. Beginning in 1820, approximately 1.3 million Swedes, a third of the country’s population, emigrated to North America, and most of them to the United States. There are more than 4.4 million Swedish Americans according to a 2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimate.

There are two data sets that have been incorporated into DNA Consultants’ method.

1. The Swedish A population data represent 309 unrelated Swedish individuals who were sampled by American Universities.
2. The Swedish B population data represent DNA samples from 424 randomly selected, unrelated individuals of Sweden. STR frequencies were reported in the most recent European database release of the Working Group of the European Network of Forensic Institutes STRbase Project ( Frequencies).

Photo: Swedish singer Agnetha Fältskog has been active on the international music scene since the 1960s. Photo is by Stockholm Pride and accessed on Agnetha Fältskog.

Source publication: Swedish (population 355): STR data for the AmpFlSTR Identifiler loci from Swedish population in comparison to European, as well as with non-European population, FSI, 2008, e49-e52. Swedish (population 453): ENFSI DNA WG STR Population Database v. 2. (strbase.org).[Population 355, 453]