Searching the Digital Archives of Norway

Introduction

The Digital Archives of Norway (Digitalarkivet) is a part of the larger national and state archives of Norway. It is an excellent source of information for people researching ancestors from Norway. These records include people listed in census records, parish registers, emigration records, property tax records, probate records, and more.

Here is a link to the Digital Archives of Norway homepage:

Digitalarkivet

Key Norwegian Words in the Digital Archives

Many of the webpages and much of the material in the Digital Archives can be viewed in English. Even so, knowing some key Norwegian words can be helpful. Here is a link to a list of Norwegian words you might encounter in the Digital Archives:

Norwegian Genealogical Word List

Searching the Archives

On the Digital Archives main page, you will find a search box labelled “Search the Sources”. In theory, this should search all the digital records listed, but I’m unconvinced that it searches all the records. I need to do some more investigating. To be thorough, you should consider navigating to individual categories and then entering search information there.

Be sure to search with name variations. Sometimes even partial name searches can be helpful. While many of my ancestors had the name Høstager, when I searched using “Høst”, I would sometimes find some of them listed as “Høstaker.”

Digital Archives also has a page describing helpful search tips: How to Search the Data