Trace Your Norwegian Ancestors via Internett

Over the last couple of years, the development of Internet has made sinificant genealogy resources available world-wide to everyone with access to this medium. Hence, a lot of Norwegian genealogy research can be carried out from anywhere in the world. This homepage points to a number of Norwegian genealogy resources on Internet. More information can be found by exploring these resources.

General Information

Before starting genealogy research it may be useful to get a general introduction on how to trace your ancestors in Norway. Such an overview is given by Yngve Nedrebo in his article on Internet WWW: http://www.norway.org  This home page contains a lot of information and may guide you to several important genealogy resources.

DIS-Norge (Norwegian Society for Computer Aided Genealogy)

A good place to start the genealogy research is at the DIS-Norge's homepage http://www.disnorge.no/ . Here you will find pointers to other genealogy resources and information on how the Norwegians do computer aided genealogy. DIS-Norge is Norway's largest genealogy society with more than 2500 members.

DIS-Rogaland

DIS-Norge has lokal branches in most counties in Norway. DIS-Rogaland is a local branch in Rogaland County.
The purpose of our organisation is to:
* Give local support to DIS-Norge
* Create a local forum for computer aided genealogy and publish related information
* Encourage local genealogy research
* Encourage activities that generate computer versions of local historical sources
More information on DIS-Rogaland is found at
http://ro.disnorge.no
or contact V. Øverlie, phone +47 51698089, e-mail: oeverlie@online.no .

Newsgroups

To get in contact with oter people interested in Norwegian genealogy you should look up the Usenet newsgroup soc.genealogy.nordic . Leave a message about the person you want information about or any other genealogy related subject. You will most likely get positive response. Otherwise you may try the newsgroups for Norwegian genealogy no.slekt and no.slekt.etterlysning where most messages are in Norwegian. The newsgroup no.slekt is for genealogy in general while messages requesting information about persons should be posted in no.slekt.etterlysning .

WWW and Usenet Search

Several genealogists have made their own research available on Internet. A search on family or location names of interest by Alta Vista at http://www.altavista.com/  may lead you to important genealogy information or even contact with living relatives. Other search tools than Alta Vista can also be explored.

Genealogy Literature

BIBSYS, a database of all recent literature located in Norwegian libraries is available for searching at www.bibsys.no/english.html . A lot of farm and family history are documented in the large number of local history books (bygdeboeker) published in Norway. A BIBSYS search on the word "bygdebok" and the country name of interest will give a list of bygdeboeker for that county.

National Censuses - (Folketellinger)

The national census for the year 1801 is available on Internet at Digitakarkivet Several types of search can be made in this national census which is the most significant primary source of Norwegian genealogy information on Internet. For Norway the census for 1865, 1875, 1891 and 1900 is available at http://draug.rhd.isv.uit.no/rhd/folketellinger.html. 

Norwegian Names

To check that a particular name is used in Norway, can be done at http://ssb-open.ssb.no/www-open/trykkher/navnesoek/navnesok.html This page will also give the total number of persons currently using that name.

Emigration

The Norwegian Emigration Center is located in Stavanger. One of their main tasks is to trace ancestors and localise living relatives of persons of Norwegian descent. In most cases, their large collection of primary sources from the whole of Norway and library of local history books (bygdeboeker) enable their professional staff to find your roots. For this service a minimum fee is charged. You will find more information at Digitalarkivet 

Computer Versions of Historical Sources

The Norwegian Historical Data Centre (RHD) has published a summary of all registered computer versions of historical sources. This summary is located at http://draug.rhd.isv.uit.no/rhd/

The Norwegian-American Bygdelagenes Fellesraad

The Norwegian-American Bygdelagenes Fellesraad is made up of organisations of emigrant descendants from particular areas of Norway who are now living in North America. Each lag seeks to preserve and strenghten bonds with its area of origin in Norway. Further information is found at http://www.hfaa.org/bygdelag