A Norwegian Research Story

Hi everyone! How’s your week going? Are you finding your school year groove yet or is your chaos your groove this year? I finally feel settled into my new school and family routine! I love it when that happens! I don’t really like the transition stage of anything in life, so I’m glad that I’m finally settled in.

Last week I said that I would have a Danish story for you that really stumped me for a bit. However, it’s actually Norwegian! So, I’m sorry if you were looking forward to a Danish one, but I promise this one will be worth it!

Research 101

Let’s talk about a research session I had for one of my clients. He was researching for his neighbor who’s family is from both Norway and Sweden, but this particular story takes place in Norway. He wanted to know everything I could find on his neighbor’s family from Norway going as far back as the session would allow. He gave me some amazing information to start with, but the focal point is on her ancestor Carl Emil Erickson. Carl immigrated to America in 1899 from Norway. However, I didn’t know his town of origin at this point. All I knew was that he came from Norway.

Carl married in 1919 and served in both WWI and WWII. This is where I found a place of origin for him. These two military records both said his birth date was 21 March 1881 and his birthplace was Oslo, Norway. I was excited and felt that familiar rush of emotion when I hit upon that valuable piece of information. I could feel the “hunt” was about to begin. I like to describe this feeling as what a bloodhound does when it picks up the scent of its prey. Now that I had his place of birth, I could go into the Norwegian records to search for his birth record.

Where to research next?

I went directly to Family Search Wiki to learn all that I could about Oslo, Norway and its genealogical records. Oslo is the capital of Norway and is a big city. Therefore, I knew I was dealing with city records and not farm records. This means that records were kept in slightly different ways in the city then in the country. They still kept church records, but people were known by streets instead of farms, etc. In this case, Oslo is still divided into several different districts or “parishes” depending on what record you’re looking at. Each district kept it’s own church records. Therefore, when looking at online records, I had to look at each district in Oslo in order to find Carl’s birth record.

And that’s what I did! Since I didn’t know his district, I searched every district in the Norwegian Digital Archives with his name and birth date. There was a good twenty districts if I remember right! I found several close candidates, but the date would be slightly off or his parents didn’t have the right naming patterns. I knew his father’s first name had to be Eric because Norway was still following the patronymic naming system at this time. You guys! I couldn’t find his birth record anywhere in Oslo! I searched page by page going a year ahead and a year behind his known birth date. I still couldn’t find him! I was honestly stumped! I felt sure he HAD to be in Oslo because that’s what the records said.

Stumped!

At this point I started feeling a little fear. What if I couldn’t find him? What if he’s not in Oslo, then how would I find him? Where do I go from here? Norway is too big of a country to search every parish! I went back to Carl’s American records to see if I missed anything, but I didn’t. There wasn’t another birthplace listed anywhere on those records. I decided to sit on this project for a day and come at it again with fresh eyes. I also contacted a good friend of mine who also does Norwegian genealogy to see what she could find.

The next day I received an email from my friend and she told me that my search was too narrow. I only needed to open my search parameters a little more geographically to see another possible candidate. We found a much better candidate born in Drobak Parish, which is only two parishes away from Oslo. We concluded after doing more research and finding more of Carl’s family, that Carl listed Oslo on the American records because it was a major city and everyone in America would know about it. We reasoned that he probably got tired of saying his real birthplace to people only to get blank looks back at him so he started saying Oslo. It’s a lot like saying I’m from Chicago or from Los Angeles when in reality I’m from a suburb or a smaller city close to the area.

There’s still hope for your research!

Whew! After we found Carl’s birth record, it was a very normal traditional research session to find his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents information. I was relieved! The point is that even experienced and professional genealogists still get stumped! We call in our colleagues and friends all the time to get us over our own brick walls! Therefore, don’t feel bad when you can’t find something and you’ve exhausted all of your known resources. I still believe the answer is out there for you. You just might have to be more creative in getting that answer then you were expecting. So…

Good luck and happy hunting!

Tiffany

P.S. Have you signed up for my Wednesday Wisdom emails? New subscribers get a free download of all of the American and Scandinavian websites I use in my business. Plus, regular subscribers get more tips and tricks that don’t make it into my blog posts. So sign up! For more articles about Norway, then check out my posts here on the history of Norway’s birth records and here for an in depth look at Norwegian birth records.