When the In-Migration Page Is Really an Out-Migration Page

If you work much with Norwegian church records, you eventually learn that the page headings do not always tell the whole story. In some cases, when the In-Migration Page is really an Out-Migration Page, it can create confusion for researchers. What looks neat and orderly in a printed form can turn out to be a little messier in practice — and that matters very much when you are trying to follow an ancestor from one parish to another.

A Small but Important Trap in Norwegian Church Records

In many nineteenth-century Norwegian church books, the preprinted migration forms were set up with an in-migration list on the left-hand page and an out-migration list on the right-hand page. Digitalarkivet’s own parish-record system reflects these categories, with separate groupings for In-migrants and Out-migration among the church-book record types (Digitalarkivet, n.d.-a). Digitalarkivet also explains that church books after 1812 included both tilgangslister and avgangslister — that is, lists of people moving into and out of the parish (Digitalarkivet, n.d.-b).

So far, so good.

The complication comes when the real world begins to press against the tidy printed form.

As movement increased in the nineteenth century, and especially as emigration gathered pace, some ministers ran out of space in the preprinted out-migration lists. They filled the right-hand page in chronological order, and when that list was full, they went back to the last blank left-hand page — even though it had been printed for in-migration — and continued entering out-migrants there instead. Usually, there is a clue. The preprinted word for “In” may be scratched out, and “Out” (Ud) added by hand.

That is where we can get caught.

If you assume that the left page must contain only arrivals and the right page must contain only departures, you may miss someone entirely. A person who left the parish may be entered on the left-hand page, even though that page was originally printed for people coming in. Worse still, the left page may not line up chronologically with the right page. The right-hand out-migration list may run along in order for a while, and then the minister may continue the out-migration record on the facing page. That leaves the two-page spread looking organized, while actually being a bit deceptive.

This is one of those details that sounds minor until it costs you an ancestor.

A useful example is the Vestre Slidre church-book page in Digitalarkivet, from Ministerialbok for Vestre Slidre prestegjeld 1844–1855, in the section for Inn- og utflyttede (1848–1852). https://goto.digitalarkivet.no/kb20070207640054 Here we see that the right hand page contains records from 1848 and 1849, while the left hand side contains records from 1852.

It is exactly the kind of source that reminds us to read church books as working manuscripts, not just as printed forms. The printed layout may suggest one thing, but the actual entries — and any handwritten changes to the headings — tell the real story (Digitalarkivet, n.d.-c).

For genealogists, the lesson is simple and very practical. If you are looking for an ancestor who left a parish and you do not find him where you expect him on the out-migration page, do not stop there. Check the facing page as well. Look closely at the headings. Look for scratched-out words. Look for signs that the minister has quietly turned the in-migration page into an overflow out-migration list.

That small habit can save a good deal of frustration.

It also serves as a useful reminder about Norwegian church records more generally. These books were standardized, yes, but they were still handwritten records kept by real people under local conditions. Digitalarkivet notes that the older books were not originally kept according to fixed patterns, and even after printed forms were introduced in 1812, the records remained practical documents shaped by the needs of the parish and the habits of the minister (Digitalarkivet, n.d.-b). For that reason, it is always wise to trust what is actually written on the page over what the printed heading suggests ought to be there. I have come across other sections of church books that were used for purposes other than those indicated by the printed form.

So when an ancestor seems to disappear, it is worth remembering: he may not be missing at all. He may simply be entered on the “wrong” side of the spread.

Why This Matters in Practice

For anyone tracing internal migration or early emigration, this is more than a technical curiosity. Migration lists are among the most useful tools we have for following people from one parish to another, especially in the nineteenth century, when church books became more structured and detailed (Digitalarkivet, n.d.-b). But they only work well if we read them with a little suspicion and a good deal of care.

A tidy form is not always a tidy record.

And in genealogy, that is the sort of thing worth remembering