Since the year of 1580 until about the year of 1680 Forest Finns have immigrated to a large part of middle Sweden working mainly with burn-beating but also with cattle raising, hunting and fishing. There have been studies made for quite some time about the Forest Finns family names, last names and location names and also about their food culture, craftsmanship and building constructions. Still there hasn´t seen to be any research about how you can use the digitized archives for further research about Forest Finns and this is where I’ve found an interesting research gap to explore further. This essay has been delimited to the areas of Dalby, Norra Ny and Gräsmark based on Carl Axel Gottlund´s notes on the forest Finnish family names that he recorded in the household records in 1821 within the given area. After this study, it has become clear that the vast majority of sites with forest Finnish settlements contain both Finnish family names and Finnish place names. The vast majority of the sites also had croft remains and stone wall cairns. It has also become clear during this study that the remains of farm buildings can be found at several of these sites. Remains of mills have also been found at several sites while only a few of the sites investigated had a sauna or ria. Barns are also less common on the sites, as are carvings and natural formations. To summarise, the house interrogation lists in the church books that Carl Axel Gottlund has recorded can provide information about the Forest Finnish family names the families have had, and which Forest Finnish place names exist in the area. But the information can also be used to calculate how much of the population in these areas had Forest Finnish roots and how they chose to settle in the areas. the traces of the Forest Finns in the material remains or other cultural heritage remains can give us more information about the building skills of the Forest Finns but also more information about their cultural heritage and living conditions.

The aim of this study is to illuminate how the 19th century’s researchers Carl Axel Gottlund and Albrekt Segerstedt contributed to the design of the cultural heritage of the Forest Finns in northern Värmland. One book from each author was analyzed: Dagbok öfver mina vandringar på Wermlands och Solörs Finnskogar 1821 (1821/2021) by Gottlund, and Segerstedts samling: skogsfinnarna i Skandinavien: en kommenterad och illustrerad källutgåva (1888/2006) by Segerstedt. Theories from the ethnographic field, the critical heritage field and from the field of scientific theories were all utilized. This study shows that the construction of a cultural heritage can be affected by multiple different factors, and that the researchers’ and their different practices often have a central role.