ABSTRACT
Sweden has a rich and varied collection of town directories which have the origins in relatively publications that date from the eighteenth century. From the variety of directories available in Sweden it is possible to chart a fairly detailed account of their changing contents. In Sweden’s other large cities, changes in the style of directory publishing tended to mirror that of Stockholm. Sweden’s population records are, in the words of Millar, ‘exceptional among social history data sources in that they follow individuals and households longitudinally’. The recording of population was by the church at the parish level, but by the nineteenth century this had evolved into a centrally organised collecting system that was closely tied to other methods of maintaining social control. , taxation, migration and social behaviour were all observed in the most detailed ways.
