That's fascinating. My mother got into genealogy in a big way a few years ago, so she's been digging through similar records for a long while and turning up some really fascinating stories. (And some really heartbreaking ones; she showed me a page from a parish register in the... 18th century, IIRC, where the priest had written down the names of about a dozen children who died in a very short time period. And the thing is, he'd written the names so very carefully, as if to make sure they'd be remembered, and next to each there was this furious, contemptuous scrawl that barely read "scarlet fever." And you picture this man who's lost half the children of his village to something they were absolutely powerless against, sitting down to write an official, objective record of it...

(And at least unusual names stand out. Digging through Swedish records gets old very fast; "Erik Andersson, son of Anders Eriksson, son of Erik Andersson, son of Anders Eriksson, son of...")