How This Latter-day Saint Discovered Ancestors and Shared the Gospel While Competing on a Swedish Family History Show

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By Kaitlyn Bancroft, Church News

Craig Sundell was at his job managing two country clubs when his half-Swedish colleague excitedly came to his office.

“Craig, I’m going to send you something you need to look at,” she said, before emailing him a link to audition for the Swedish reality TV show “Allt för Sverige.” The title translates directly as “All for Sweden,” but the show’s English name is “The Great Swedish Adventure.”

Each season, the International Emmy Award-winning series chooses 10 Americans with Swedish ancestry to travel to the country, dig deep into their roots and compete for the grand prize: meeting their Swedish relatives. Competition activities include intellectual and physical challenges related to Swedish culture.

Sundell, a Latter-day Saint who lives north of Dallas, Texas, understood why his colleague thought he might be a good fit for the show, as she’d become familiar with his Swedish ancestry while helping him translate some family history documents.

But it was already late January 2024, meaning he’d have only 10 days to submit all the application materials. Besides the short notice, Sundell said he’d heard that upwards of 350 people had applied. “I really felt like my chances were nil.”

To his surprise, however, the producers called him to arrange an interview. That led to a second interview, then a third and finally a psychological evaluation before he got the good news: He was going to Sweden as one of the 10 American contestants on “Allt för Sverige” Season 12.

Filming began in May, and Sundell spent several weeks exploring the country, including a visit to his ancestral homeland on the island of Gotland. Season 12 is currently airing, and American audiences can watch episodes from previous seasons on YouTube.

Sundell was most prominently featured in this season’s episode four, where he shared his personal story and his Latter-day Saint faith. He was also featured in episode five, where he was eliminated from the competition.

Though Sundell didn’t win the grand prize of meeting his Swedish relatives, he’s connected with them since returning home — and he also discovered a branch of his family tree previously unknown to him.

Sundell said participating in the show had its challenges, like navigating time off with his employer and being unable to bring any family members with him.

But he and his wife prayed about the opportunity, went to the temple and “always just had this feeling that I should go. … If [my time on the show] could get some interest there in the Stockholm temple reopening next year, it may lead to some more interest in the Church.”

Cross Roads Ward Bishop Jacob Lesue, Sundell’s bishop in Aubrey, Texas, said Sundell’s experience is demonstrating the significance of family history work to local Latter-day Saints.

“We would love to have more involvement [and] more activity with family history work,” said Bishop Lesue, adding that to have Sundell featured on the show “sets a great example for the ward and even the stake.”

Looking for Family Tree Branches

Sundell said his Swedish ancestry comes through his father’s side of the family. Genealogy research through that line is difficult, however, because his father was born out of wedlock during the early 20th century, and children of unmarried parents at that time received only the mother’s name on their birth certificates.

Sundell said his father was raised by his maternal grandparents, who immigrated with him to the U.S. when he was 6 years old. They settled in Chicago in 1918.

Sundell said his father grew up in the Chicago area, where he met his wife and joined the Church about three years before Sundell was born.

“He died when I was 13, and mom did her best to keep us kind of looped in on Swedish things, but she didn’t know a lot about it,” Sundell said.

So when the opportunity with “Allt för Sverige” arrived, he felt that finding his Swedish grandfather could open up a new genealogy line and lead to more temple work.

The show’s genealogists dove into trying to discover who Sundell’s paternal grandfather was. They also did significant research on his paternal grandmother’s line, he said, which is how he wound up on the island of Gotland for the special episode focused on him.

There, he was taken to a remote, centuries-old church where his sixth-great-grandfather was a clergyman. A 300-year-old painting, depicting that grandfather, his wife and their nine children, still hangs in the church, Sundell recounted.

“We didn’t know about this clergyman in southern Gotland,” Sundell said, adding, “There’s going to be a lot of [temple] work that needs to be done, and that’s what we’ve been kind of gearing up for since I’ve been back.”

Opening Doors

Though his experience in Gotland opened up a new branch of Sundell’s family tree, the show’s genealogists remained stumped on who his paternal grandfather was.

After his return home, however, Sundell said a genealogist approached him with an offer to trace his paternal grandfather’s line through DNA technology. That process is ongoing, but Sundell is hopeful—the genealogist has narrowed the possibilities down to a specific geographic area, he said.

He’s also heard from a distant relative — a genealogist who learned about him through the show and hopes to help him discover who his paternal grandfather was.

“I can’t tell you how many doors opened up for me [during the show],” Sundell said.

He plans to take his family back to Sweden next summer to visit their family history sites and meet the living relatives still there.

In the meantime, Sundell said he’s simply grateful he got to have this experience.

“We were all very 10 different, unique [contestants],” he said, noting that of all of them, he was the only one whose religion the producers focused on. “So there’s a real fascination with the Church over there.”

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