How to Search the Norwegian Digital Archive Finn Karlsen
Presentation Finn Karlsen Former employe National Archive Norway, Statsarkivet in Trondheim Genealogist for 40 years URL: www.fkarlsen.net Email: fikarlse@gmail.com The presentation will be available on my homepage
Content What is Digitalarkivet Challenges Searching the database Finding and reading scanned documents Other content
+ www.arkivverket.no/eng/digitalarkivet
What we can find at Digitalarkivet Searchable database with almost 30 mill. records 23 mill. scanned images from several 1000 sources Discussion forums Bookshelf with more than 600 books (in Norwegian) All sources are of course Norwegian
Challenges - names Name 1: Given name, does not change, but the spelling differs Name 2: Patronymic, fathers first name with sen / -datter (or similar) Name 3: Address, current or earlier farm name, might change several times From the end of 1800 name 3 started to become a fixed surname, from 1923 everybody had to have a surname
Elisabeth 89 variations from Digitalarkivet elabet,eleabeth,eleasabet,eleisabet,elenelisebet,elesabet,elesabeth,elese beth,eleserbet,elesiabeth,eliabet,eliabeth,eliabth,eliasabeth,eliasbet,elias beth,elibeth,elicabet,elicebeth,eliesabet,eliesabeth,elilsabet,elinesebet, elisaabet, elisab,elisabe,elisabedt,elisabeht,elisabet, elisabeth, elisabethanna, elisabethe, elisabethy,elisabets,elisabett,elisabith, elisabt, elisabæt,elisabæth,elisaet, elisasabet,elisb,elisbet,elisbeth,elisbæt, eliseb, elisebedt,elisebeht,elisebet,elisebeth,elisebett,elisebit,elisebith, elisebrikt, elisebt,elisebte,elisebæt,elisebæth,elislebeth,elissebet,elisæbeth,elizabet, elizabeth,ellesabeth, ellesebet,ellisabet,ellisabeth,ellisebet,elsabe,elsabet, elsabeth,elsb,elsbet,elsbeta,elsbth,elsebe,elseber, elseberg,elsebet, elsebeth,elsebretine,elseby,elsebær, elsebø,elsebøe,elsebør,elsiabeth, elsibe,elsiebeth
Challenges - geography Where is the farm Hammer Where is the community or parish Snaasen
Some tips Use Digitalarkivet: Advanced search for properties Try with different spellings and use wild-cards (*?) Municipality and parish names nomalized to todays spelling Try Oluf Rygh: Norwegian farm names http://www.dokpro.uio.no/rygh_ng/rygh_form.html Spelling as of early 1900 Try map: www.seeiendom.no Sorry, no english Todays names and borders, but might help Family Search Wiki has a lot of information about Norwegian kommuner
Searching the Digitalarkiv
Search methods Simple search Advanced search Select source
General rules for searching Digitalarkivet does only exact searches, no «Sounds like» or «Part of» Don t asume that names are written the way you think they are, start with part of the name with wild-cards You have to set the search criteria so that the result is 1000 records or less, if the result is more, you will only see the first 1000 Fill out with other criteria like birth years, place of living etc
Wildcards etc. * can be used in front, middle or end of words, represents any number of characters, also 0. Except for * in the start of a word, there must be two characters in front of the * «Eli*be*» - any variation of Elisabeth starting with «Eli», then any characters, then «be», then any ending. Giving Elisabet, Elisabeth, Elizabeth, Elisabbetty etc. «*risto*» gives Kristoffer, Kristopher, Christopher, Cristoffer etc.
More wildcards? represents one character,?? two characters «Ann?» gives you Anne, Anna, Anny but not Ann, Annette etc «Ol??» gives you Olaf, Olav, Oluf, Olai but not Ole, Olava, Olaus, Olaug etc
Either/Or (vertical bar) gives you two different spellings «nes* næs*» gives you Nes, Ness, Næs, Næss, but also all other words that starts with the letters. No spaces You can have several, I could have written: «nes ness næs næss»
First/last and sequence ^ (caret) what follows should come first «^Ann*» gives you Annelise but not Mary Ann $ (dollar) what precedes should come last «*set$» gives you Nilsen Furuset but not Furuset Nilsen << (double less-than) the search string preceding the sign should also precede in the result «Mari << Anne» will give you Mari Anne but not Anne Mari
Simple Search Search the sources Will search several fields in the whole database If you search for «Nes*» you will get every record with words that start with Nes in any name field, place of birth, family position and residence If you give several words, all the words have to be present in the record, but it might be in different fields
+ Advanced search
Person information Search only in fields given Use wild-cards also on year: 185* gives you every year from 1850 1859 All fields specified must have data
Source category Choose type of sources for search. If you choose nothing, you search in all The + sign gives more options Several categories can be selected Some of the catagories contains few records
Geography Select geographic area for your search. You can have several selections The + gives more options, first fylke and then kommune
Period and Event time Period gives possibility for a time span If you are looking for something that happend a spesific year or date, you fill in the Event information
Select source If you wonder what sources are available for a geographic area and/or time period, you can use this search method. You have some of the same search categories as in advanced search. If you find an interesting source, you can read or search that spesific source
Themes Searches for several sources covering similar events Example: Deaths gives church-books with burials, and death protocols with the Circuit Judge (Sorenskriver)
Scanned images
Available scanned sources All available church books (only about 20% searchable) Mortgage books and Real Estate Registers until 1950 Some of the censuses Probate records up until about 1900 Acounts and tax lists back until around 1550 Legal proceedings and sanctions until around 1800
Of course Digitalarkivet is changing There is allways something new coming as two years ago: the «old» DA was closing it is still there but not updated This time: scanned/digitised images First the current way of viewing church books Then the new (and better) way that is coming (it is there but not all data)
Shorcut menu Lists the most important features at Digitalarkivet Divided into categories Shortcut to both the current and the new way to work with scanned sources (marked Beta) Parish registers is our focus at the moment
Start your search You can select a county (fylke) and get all the books from that fylke You can narrow with type of register Official or Copy You can narrow with Period 1810-1860 All books that cover all or part You can search for a parish by name If you have made a search use «clear» before making a new
+ Church books from Frøya
+ Church books Frøya 1877-1878
+ Baptized girls 1877 Frøya
+ Top of page
+ Lefthand page
+ Righthand page
+ New pages for working with scanned images
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Thank you! www.fkarlsen.net