Swedish words in old records · card P

piga

A piga was a maid: a young woman in service on a farm or in a household, the usual title of unmarried working women in Swedish rolls.

Until about 1920 piga was the normal word for a girl or woman working in someone else's house or on their farm, the female counterpart of the dräng. Many worked as pigor for years and married only in their late twenties. In older usage the word could also mean simply an unmarried woman.

Servants were hired by the year and often changed employers, so a woman listed as piga may appear in several household rolls and moving records. Follow the inflyttad and utflyttad notes from farm to farm.

As seen in a recordHousehold examination roll of a Swedish parish, 1860s
P. Johanna Andersdotter, f. 1841 i Hjo, infl. 1862 fr. Fridene
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How to cite this page

Daily Ancestor. "piga." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/swedish/piga. Last checked 2026-10-28.

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