Not Everyone Who Left Rural Norway Was Going to America

When we think about Norwegian emigration in the nineteenth century, the story is often reduced to a familiar sequence. A family leaves its farm, travels to Bergen, boards a ship and begins a new life in America. However, it’s important to remember that not everyone who left rural Norway was going to America. That certainly happened, but it was only one of several forms of migration taking place in Norway at the time.

People were also moving between rural communities, from the countryside to the towns and from one town to another. Some eventually crossed the Atlantic, while others settled permanently in Norway. For some emigrants, the journey to America was not a single move but the final stage of a longer process.

A particularly interesting example comes from Førde in Sunnfjord. In his 2012 master’s thesis, Utvandringa til Amerika og flyttinga til Bergen frå Førde i Sunnfjord mellom 1865 og 1900, Haakon Breien examines three groups of migrants: those who emigrated directly from Førde to America through Bergen, those who moved to Bergen before later emigrating, and those who moved to Bergen and remained there. He found significant differences between these groups, both in their social background and in the way their migration developed (Breien, 2012).

For genealogists, this distinction matters because the emigrant record often shows us only the last part of the journey.

Emigration was only part of a larger movement

The great Norwegian emigration to North America was enormous. More than 400,000 people left Norway for America between 1865 and 1900, and the main waves of emigration occurred during the 1860s and early 1870s, the 1880s and early 1890s, and again after 1900 (Nerbøvik, 2025). (Store norske leksikon)

Yet emigration cannot be understood separately from internal migration. As historian Ingrid Semmingsen noted, people leaving rural districts did not all go to America; some remained in Norway, and the balance between overseas and internal migration varied considerably by region and period (Semmingsen, 1960). (Tandfonline)

This is particularly relevant in Western Norway. Store norske leksikon describes emigration and internal migration as two aspects of the same broader movement. Established migration routes between rural areas and nearby towns could actually reduce emigration because people had another destination available to them. In later phases of the emigration, many people leaving Norwegian cities for America were themselves former rural migrants (Nerbøvik, 2025). (Store norske leksikon)

The history of Førde fits this wider pattern remarkably well.

Førde and the road to Bergen

Compared with some of the major emigration districts in western Norway, Sunnfjord had relatively little emigration. Breien notes that areas such as Vik in Sogn, Voss, Sunnhordland and Hardanger had much stronger emigration, while Sunnfjord belonged to the areas where comparatively few people went to America (Breien, 2012).

That does not mean that the population of Sunnfjord was particularly immobile. There was a well-established movement towards Bergen, and this gave people an alternative to overseas emigration. Breien’s study suggests that this internal migration was sufficiently important that it needs to be considered alongside emigration rather than treated simply as background information.

The same pattern can be seen in the earlier history of Sunnfjord. Harald Jarl Runde’s study of the period before 1865 describes considerable movement from Sunnfjord towards the coast and towards Bergen. Some people who later emigrated had already spent time in Bergen. One example is Elling Ludvigson Botnen from Førde, who received a certificate to move to Bergen in 1844 and was recorded as an emigrant to America five years later (Runde, n.d.). (utvandring-naustdal.info)

This is not enough to establish that every early migrant to Bergen intended to continue to America. In many cases we simply do not know. It does, however, show that movement through Bergen was already part of the migration pattern before the large-scale emigration of the later nineteenth century.

Three different kinds of migrant

Breien’s study becomes particularly useful because it does not lump everyone who left Førde into one category. He identified 1,035 direct emigrants between 1865 and 1900, compared with 78 people who could be identified as stage emigrants. Another 149 emigrants could not be classified with certainty because the available sources did not make it possible to determine whether they had lived in Bergen before leaving Norway (Breien, 2012).

The difference in absolute numbers might suggest that the stage migration through Bergen was relatively unimportant. Breien shows why that conclusion would be misleading. The stage emigrants were drawn from the much larger population of people from Førde who were living in Bergen, so their numbers need to be considered in relation to that population.

When Breien compared the estimated movement to Bergen with emigration to America, migration to Bergen was greater throughout the period. The estimated annual averages were 48.1 people moving to Bergen compared with 44.8 emigrants to America in 1866–1875. In 1876–1885 the figures were 36.6 and 35.8 respectively. The difference became considerably larger in 1886–1890, when the corresponding figures were 65.2 and 41.8. During 1891–1900, the estimates were 39.4 and 23.8 (Breien, 2012).

Breien is careful about these comparisons because the two figures are constructed from different types of sources. The number of people moving to Bergen is estimated from census evidence, while the emigrant figures come from emigration sources. They should therefore not be treated as equally precise measurements. Even so, the overall pattern is clear: Førde sent more people to Bergen than to America during the period studied (Breien, 2012).

That is a rather different picture from the one we get if we look only at emigration.

Who went to America and who went to Bergen?

The three groups were not socially identical.

The direct emigrants were dominated by farmers and were generally better off than the other migrant groups. The stage emigrants and those who settled in Bergen had more modest economic backgrounds, although there was an important difference between them. The stage emigrants included relatively large numbers of people who were skilled craftsmen or were acquiring a craft. Those who remained in Bergen were much more likely to be unskilled workers (Breien, 2012).

Among the Førde migrants who remained in Bergen, Breien found that 46 percent of the workers belonged to the category of unskilled labourers. Another 24.3 percent worked in trade, administration, services, transport or the military, while only about 13 percent were craftsmen. A further 16.5 percent were classified as sick, supported by others or without an occupation. Breien therefore regarded the Bergen group as being in generally poorer circumstances than the stage emigrants, while the stage emigrants themselves were poorer than the direct emigrants (Breien, 2012).

This suggests that the decision about where to move was connected to economic resources, but not in a simple way. Breien’s conclusion is that those who were relatively well off could make the longer journey directly to America, while people with fewer resources were more likely to move to Bergen. Some of those who moved to Bergen later accumulated enough money to continue to America, while others remained in the city (Breien, 2012).

There is an important qualification here. The people who stayed in Førde were not necessarily the poorest group. Breien points out that the direct emigrants could be dominated by farmers in absolute numbers, while cottagers could have a relatively high tendency to emigrate when the figures were compared with their representation in the population. In other words, we have to distinguish between the composition of the emigrant group and the likelihood of people in different social groups actually leaving (Breien, 2012).

Something changed around 1875

The character of emigration from Førde also changed during the period.

Before about 1875, families with dependent children were prominent among the direct emigrants. After 1875, unmarried young people increasingly dominated. Breien connects this change, cautiously, with the growing importance of steamship travel. Steamships made the journey faster, less dependent on sailing conditions and cheaper, allowing people with fewer resources to consider overseas migration (Breien, 2012).

The wider national pattern supports the observation that emigration changed during these decades. The first large wave, from 1866 to 1873, was primarily a rural phenomenon. During the following phase, beginning in the 1870s, cities became increasingly important sources of emigrants. Many of those urban emigrants had previously moved into the cities from rural districts, which means that some people’s migration to America was effectively a two-stage process (Nerbøvik, 2025). (Store norske leksikon)

The change was not simply technological. By the later nineteenth century, information about America was also more widely available, Norwegian communities had become established there, and previous emigrants could provide contacts for those who followed. Migration networks therefore became increasingly important alongside the economic and technological changes.

Bergen could be the destination

It is tempting to think of Bergen as a waiting room for emigrants. For many people from Førde, however, it was where their migration ended.

Breien’s census-based research shows a substantial population from Førde living in Bergen during the period. His method does not allow him to establish the exact year when every individual moved to the city, because the evidence comes primarily from the censuses of 1865, 1875, 1885, 1891 and 1900. Someone first appearing in Bergen in 1875 must have moved there sometime between the two censuses, but someone already present in 1865 cannot be dated more precisely from this material.

The method also means that some short-term migrants will be missed. A person who moved to Bergen between two censuses and then left again before the next census might never appear in the dataset. This is an important limitation when we use census records to reconstruct migration.

It is also one reason why the absence of a person from a particular source should not be treated as proof that the person did not move.

A family history can disappear between the records

This becomes particularly important when working with emigrant records.

Imagine that your ancestor was born in Førde in 1860 and appears in the Bergen emigrant protocol in 1885. The record may give you the person’s age, occupation, birthplace and destination. It might be tempting to move directly from the baptismal record in Førde to the American records.

But there may be twenty years of Norwegian history missing from that reconstruction.

The person may have left Førde as a teenager, worked in Bergen, married there, learned a trade and eventually decided to emigrate. Another sibling may have followed the same route but remained in Bergen. A third may have stayed in Førde.

These are three different migration histories, even though all three began in the same family.

This is why the distinction between birthplace, residence and place of departure matters so much. A person’s birthplace in an emigrant protocol tells us where the person came from originally. It does not necessarily tell us where they had been living immediately before emigration.

An earlier example from Sunnfjord

The pattern of migration through Bergen can also be seen in individual cases.

Runde describes Elling Ludvigson Botnen, a young man from Angedalen in Førde. In 1844 he moved to Bergen. Five years later, in 1849, he appears as the first registered emigrant to America from Førde parish (Runde, n.d.). (utvandring-naustdal.info)

The surviving records do not tell us everything about his years in Bergen, so it would be wrong to assume that he moved there specifically because he intended to emigrate. Nevertheless, his case demonstrates that rural-to-urban migration and overseas emigration could occur as successive stages in the same person’s life.

Runde also points out that the documentation for the early period is incomplete. Some people received certificates to move to places such as Kristiansand or Bergen, and later evidence is missing. It is therefore possible that some of these people eventually continued to America without leaving a clear documentary trail connecting the stages (Runde, n.d.). (utvandring-naustdal.info)

This is a familiar problem in genealogy. The records often preserve the beginning and end of a journey while leaving the middle uncertain.

The problem with looking only for emigrants

Norwegian genealogy has understandably developed a strong focus on emigration. The records are fascinating, and an emigrant protocol can provide a direct connection between a Norwegian ancestor and a later American family.

But that focus can also distort our understanding of what happened to the people who did not emigrate.

The broader research shows that internal migration and emigration were closely connected. In some regions, established movement towards nearby towns reduced the proportion of people who went overseas. In others, migration to a city became the first stage in a later journey to America (Nerbøvik, 2025; Semmingsen, 1960). (Store norske leksikon)

The Førde study illustrates both possibilities. Bergen was large enough to absorb substantial numbers of people from the surrounding rural districts, but it could also become a staging point for those who eventually continued westward.

For an individual family, there was no single migration pattern that everyone followed.

What this means for your research

If an ancestor disappears from a rural Norwegian parish between the 1860s and the beginning of the twentieth century, America is certainly one possibility, but it should not be the first and only assumption.

Bergen deserves to be searched just as carefully.

The census records can establish whether your ancestor was living there. Occupation can provide an additional clue because a change from agricultural work to a trade or urban occupation may help explain why the person moved. Marriage records can reveal whether the move became permanent, while the addresses of relatives and associates may indicate whether the person had a social network in the city.

If the ancestor later emigrated, the Bergen period can help explain the timing of the overseas journey. If the person remained in Bergen, you have not found a failed emigrant. You have found someone whose migration story ended in Norway.

This is also why it is useful to distinguish between where someone was born, where they lived and where they emigrated from. These three places may all be different.

For someone born in Førde, the sequence might have been Førde–Bergen–America. For another member of the same community it might have been Førde–Bergen. Someone else might have gone directly from Førde to America. The emigrant protocol will record only the final stage for the first and third examples.

The rest of the story may be waiting in Norwegian records.

The journey was not always a straight line

Breien’s study of Førde is a local study, and its conclusions should not automatically be applied to every part of Norway. What makes it valuable is precisely that it shows how much can be missed when emigration is studied without considering internal migration.

Between 1865 and 1900, more people from Førde moved to Bergen than emigrated to America. The direct emigrants were generally better off than those who moved to Bergen, while the stage emigrants occupied an intermediate position and included relatively many skilled craftsmen. After about 1875, the direct emigrant group also changed from being dominated by families towards increasing numbers of unmarried young people (Breien, 2012).

The broader Norwegian evidence points in the same direction. Emigration was part of a much larger movement of people, and established internal migration routes could shape who eventually went to America and who remained in Norway (Nerbøvik, 2025; Semmingsen, 1960). (Store norske leksikon)

For genealogists, that gives us a useful rule of thumb: when an ancestor disappears from a rural parish in western Norway, do not send them across the Atlantic too quickly. Look for Bergen first.

The person you are looking for may never have become an American emigrant at all. Or Bergen may have been the missing chapter between the Norwegian farm and the American destination.

Either way, the journey was probably more complicated than the final emigrant record makes it appear.

References

Breien, H. (2012). Utvandringa til Amerika og flyttinga til Bergen frå Førde i Sunnfjord mellom 1865 og 1900 [Master’s thesis, University of Bergen].

Nerbøvik, J. (2025, September 13). Utvandringa frå Noreg til Nord-Amerika. Store norske leksikon. Store norske leksikon

Runde, H. J. (n.d.). Dei fyrste utvandrarane: Sunnfjord og Førde prestegjeld 1825–65. Dei fyrste utvandrarane

Semmingsen, I. (1960). Norwegian emigration in the nineteenth century. Scandinavian Economic History Review, 8(2), 151–172. (Tandfonline)