A quest for roots and kinship: Family history in the television series Allt för Sverige (The Great Swedish Adventure)

This paper considers the contemporary significance of family history and, more generally, cross-national heritage by studying a Swedish television programme in which Swedish Americans visit Sweden to find out more about their ancestors and possibly to meet present-day relatives. Saar’s theory of three levels of genealogy—history, evaluation, and genre—is used as the analytical framework. The findings indicate that the contemporary significance of family history is multilayered and complex, and is acknowledged to be of great importance in self-reflection, self-understanding, and a sense of rootedness.