Crossing oceans – bridging my heritage
I just made two great friends from Minnesota; Rick and Janet Swanson. Not only friends, it turns out that Janet and I are related. It is a pleasure to present this story
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Norwegian Genealogy and then some
Genealogy, history and culture from Norway
Norwegian Genealogy
Norwegian renaming traditions
Many genealogists know about renaming traditions. Some use it for a lot more than it’s worth.
How to read Gothic handwriting – 5
This is the last installment in my little study of Gothic handwriting.
How to read Gothic handwriting – 4 – Letters to words
In this installment I will look at some words that frequently appear in church records.
How to read Gothic handwriting – 3
I am continuing my quest at getting better at reading Gothic handwriting. In this part I will try to group the letters together and look at differences and similarities.
Gothic handwriting – 2
In the last “installment” of this “study” I promised to be back with more. I have gone through some records from the first part of the 1700s and tried to recognize the letters there.
Find Norwegian place names
It can often be difficult to find the name of a particular place or farm when searching for ancestors in Norway. I want to draw your attention to three tools that has been invaluable in my genealogical work.
Bygdebøker are made searchable at Familysearch.org.
Going to the FamilySearch.com webpage “Search Genealogies” you can search family trees submitted by users based on Norwegian bygdebøker.
Norwegian naming
When you get into Norwegian genealogy you will very soon find a number of unfamiliar and sometimes strange ways to name a person.
How to read Gothic handwriting – 1
Gothic handwriting was developed in the 1100s in France on the basis of the Carolingian minuscule. Variations of this handwriting dominated in Norway from the 1600s, and were taught in Norwegian schools to about 1860.