Religious dissidents in the censuses

Here is the second installment about religious dissidents in Norway.

In this short article, we look at how the religious dissidents were registered in the censuses.

Most of us use the transcribed and searchable version of the censuses. Here is the census 1865, showing Elisabeth Olsen living in Fredrikshald (Modern Halden)

If we have not already done so, we have to open the “More information” tab, by clicking the + sign to the right. If we have opened this tab, it stays open for our future searches until we choose to close it.

When the “More information” tab is opened the page looks like this: (Hover mouse over pictures to enlarge)

We can now see that under “Religious community” Elisabeth is registered as a Methodist. Below is the original house list from the census. column 7 asks “If not a member of the state church, what religious community does the person belong to?” Here we see a note by Elisabeth’s name. Interestingly, none of her children have any notes attached, so we must assume that they belong to the state church.

If we search the censuses from 1865 and up, l  we find the same “Person pages” as in my two first examples. in the censuses1900 and 1910 persons belonging to the state church will have an “s” registered under “Religious community”.

Be sure to read the first article about Religious dissidents in Norway.