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An Adventure in Norwegian Research

My husband works with computers all day, so what do you suppose he does during his lunch period? Works on computers!

This quirk of his personality worked to my benefit this week. In anticipation of our trip to Norway, during his lunch hour over the past several weeks he has researched his family using the Norwegian online archives http://arkivverket.no/eng/Digitalarkivet. When he could find no more information on his family, he offered to look for mine!

I had complete information only for my great-grandparents, Ole Bentsen and Sofie Sivertsdatter, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1905. Using the online archives, I had located baptism, confirmation, and marriage records for them and their siblings. I had confirmed the names of their parents (Lorents Nicolai Bentsen, Karen Johansdatter, Sivert Knudsen, Martha Hansdatter) as given to me by their daughter. These records told me that prior to immigration, my family had resided on various farms in the Vesterålen district of Nordland County, Norway. I hoped to visit these farms, the same way we will visit my husband’s farms in the Ringsaker District of Hedmark County.

Before the trip, he wanted to identify my earlier generations and whether they had lived in the same places in Nordland. Soon he found that my family research presented difficulties he had not faced with his. The Hedmark records had been indexed; Nordland had not. Hedmark records went back further in time than the Nordland records. And then there were the farms.

Not really farms at all in Vesterålen, but rather geographic areas of administrative convenience, my family’s residences turned out to be fishing villages on remote islands. My husband came marching into the house after work one evening and announced that we would not be visiting my family “farms” because we have no way to get there. Even the ferries do not stop at many of these places. I will have to be content with visiting the main islands of Vesterålen.

I appreciate all the work my husband did to advance my research. For his sake, I wish it were easier. Now, he should take a break and find something relaxing to do at lunchtime.

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