Understanding Norwegian Emigration

Norwegian emigration to North America unfolded parish by parish, not as a single national event but as a chain of local decisions shaped by land scarcity, kinship, and faith. Scholars from George T. Flom (1915) to Jon Gjerde (1989) have shown that migration networks formed along cultural and familial lines that mirrored parish borders. Every farm and fjord left its mark on the Atlantic story.

I have written about emigration before and will likely again, as this is such a vital part of the family history of the majority of my readers.  By looking at it from different angles, we can hopefully gain a better understanding of this crucial point in the emigrant’s life.

The Parish as Point of Departure

In early decades, parish priests were gatekeepers. Departing Norwegians needed certificates of conduct and baptism before they could travel (Semmingsen, 1960). The church’s emigration records — utflyttede or utvandrede lists — show entire households registering for departure in some years. These lists, especially in western coastal parishes such as Stavanger, Hordaland, and Sogn og Fjordane, capture the early momentum noted by Flom (1915), who traced many of the first emigrants to the Quaker and Haugean dissenters of these districts.

Flom (1915) observed that “from Stavanger Amt, as well as from Ryfylke and Jæderen, whole neighborhoods moved westward, often bound by ties of religious fellowship” (p. 27). These emigrants were not driven solely by hardship but by a blend of religious idealism, political independence, and opportunity—a theme later expanded by Gjerde (1989), who showed that once in America, they recreated parishlike settlements anchored in shared faith and dialect.

Classic Routes through Norway, Britain, and North America

By the 1830s and 1840s, emigrants traveled first from home parishes to Norwegian ports such as Stavanger, Bergen, Kristiansand, or Christiania. Increasingly, they took feeder steamships to Hull or Liverpool in England, then boarded larger trans-Atlantic liners bound for New York, Quebec, or Montreal (Norway Heritage, 2024).

Flom (1915) describes these early voyages vividly: “The emigrant ship Restauration from Stavanger, 1825, carried fifty-two souls, a small parish in itself, and reached New York in October after a perilous crossing” (p. 45). By the 1860s, organized agents in Bergen and Kristiansand sold through-tickets via the UK, a system that later scholars identified as the start of modern trans-national migration chains (Lovoll, 2015).

Most Norwegians ultimately settled in the Upper Midwest — Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota — drawn by letters from earlier parish neighbors describing familiar lakes and forests. Gjerde (1989) emphasizes that “the parish acted as the organizing unit of migration,” producing clusters in America where dialect, Lutheran practice, and mutual aid persisted for generations (pp. 141–142).

Arrival Ports and UK Transit: The Atlantic Crossing

While Norwegian emigrants are often imagined as sailing directly from Bergen or Christiania to New York, the reality was far more intricate. Most emigrants, particularly after the 1850s, travelled through British transit ports before boarding transatlantic liners. This system evolved as Norway lacked large deep-sea emigrant ships until the later decades of the 19th century (Norway Heritage, 2024).

Feeder Routes through the United Kingdom

Between the 1850s and 1880s, the majority of Norwegian emigrants took short feeder voyages across the North Sea to British east-coast ports, most notably Hull, Grimsby, and occasionally Leith in Scotland. Steamship companies such as the Wilson Line, Tønning & Co., and Anglo-Norwegian Line operated weekly or fortnightly routes connecting Bergen, Stavanger, or Christiania (Oslo) with Hull (Holden, 2018).

Upon arrival in Hull, emigrants were processed through a small emigration depot, disinfected, and then transported by train across England—typically via York and Manchester—to Liverpool, where the large transatlantic liners docked (Lovoll, 2015). The trip across England could take less than twelve hours. In Liverpool, emigrants stayed in lodging houses—often run by agents familiar with Norwegian customers—until their ship’s departure.

The cost and convenience of this two-stage route made it dominant by the 1860s. By 1880, as much as three-quarters of Norwegian emigrants were using Hull–Liverpool feeder connections (Norway Heritage, 2024).

Direct Norwegian Departures

A smaller but growing number travelled directly from Norway, especially from Bergen, Stavanger, Kristiansand, and later Trondheim, once the larger lines began sailing from these ports in the 1870s–1880s (Semmingsen, 1960). The direct Bergen–New York and Stavanger–Quebec routes were serviced first by wooden sailing ships and later by steamships such as those of the Thingvalla and Scandinavian-America Lines. These direct routes became more common after 1881, when Norwegian steamship companies entered the emigrant trade.

Arrival Ports in North America

The two principal arrival gateways for Norwegians were New York and Quebec, though other ports—including Montreal, Boston, and Halifax—were used at various times.

• New York served as the chief entry for passengers sailing from Liverpool. From 1855 to 1890, arrivals were processed at Castle Garden, a state-run immigration depot. After 1892, operations moved to Ellis Island, which recorded tens of thousands of Norwegians each decade (FamilySearch, 2024).

• Quebec functioned as the main Canadian port for emigrants arriving via British lines under the Allan Line and Dominion Line. From Quebec, many continued by rail through Montreal, Toronto, and into the American Midwest.

• Some Norwegian ships made direct landfall at Boston or Philadelphia, especially in the early sailing-ship era (Flom, 1915).

The choice of arrival port often reflected ticketing arrangements made in Norway: an emigrant who purchased a “through ticket” via Hull to Quebec might travel entirely under one contract, while another bound for New York transferred from Norwegian to British steamship companies in Liverpool.

Inland Destinations and Chain Migration

Upon arrival, emigrants moved inland along established ethnic corridors. Those landing at New York frequently took the Erie Canal or Great Lakes routes westward, while arrivals through Quebec travelled by rail to Chicago, Milwaukee, or La Crosse, Wisconsin. In these towns, newcomers joined relatives or fellow parishioners from the same Norwegian districts—a phenomenon Gjerde (1989) identifies as parish-based chain migration. The result was a pattern of clustered settlements that preserved dialect, church practices, and kinship networks across the Atlantic.

Summary Table: Common Routes, 1836–1914

Why They Left

Economic motives intertwined with social and spiritual ideals. Population growth in the 18th century had divided farms into ever-smaller plots. Younger sons and daughters faced limited prospects (Semmingsen, 1960). At the same time, religious revival movements such as Haugean pietism stirred a desire for moral independence from the state church (Flom, 1915).

Letters from earlier emigrants fueled the imagination. Flom (1915) recounts that news of fertile land in Illinois and Wisconsin “spread like the telling of a saga from farm to farm,” leading whole parishes to plan departures (p. 76). These correspondence networks, as Gjerde (1989) later documented, formed the social backbone of chain migration, explaining why emigrants from a single Norwegian parish might reappear decades later clustered in a single Midwestern county.

What Remained Behind

Emigration left visible marks on the home parishes. Population decline reshaped inheritance lines and parish economies. Thorvaldsen (2018) notes that emigration protocols reveal striking age gaps In some western parishes, more than a third of adults aged 20–35 left between 1865 and 1885. Flom (1915) wrote that “in the villages of Hordaland one hears the sound of the departing youth, while the old remain by the hearths” (p. 118).

For genealogists, these absences appear as sudden breaks in the church books — baptisms and confirmations without later marriages or deaths. Yet, as Lovoll (2015) observed, emigrants often maintained emotional and financial ties to their home parishes through letters, remittances, and return visits, leaving behind a dual identity that linked fjord and prairie.

Life in the New Land

Gjerde (1989) explored how these parish migrants adapted to rural America. He found that Norwegian settlers replicated the communal ethos of their home parishes: founding Lutheran congregations, mutual-aid societies, and schools in Norwegian dialect. In places such as Koshkonong, Wisconsin and Goodhue County, Minnesota, settlers from the same Norwegian parish often occupied neighboring farms. Over generations, these clusters maintained distinctive naming customs and family patterns, demonstrating a “demographic adaptation within rural ethnic communities” (Gjerde, 1989, p. 140).

Such patterns help modern researchers trace not just who left Norway, but how their parish culture survived abroad.

For Genealogical Research

Understanding parish-by-parish emigration helps genealogists:

1. Identify origins: Check parish emigrant lists (utflyttede) and Digitalarkivet’s port records.

2. Follow the route: If no direct Norwegian port record exists, search British departure lists from Hull or Liverpool between 1850–1890.

3. Locate destination clusters: Cross-reference the origin parish with known Midwestern settlements; Flom’s and Gjerde’s works list many.

4. Interpret gaps: Absences in marriage or burial records may indicate emigration, not death.

5. Reconstruct networks: Study sponsors in baptismal entries. It was often the same people who later migrated together.

Conclusion

From Flom’s early chronicling of pioneers like Cleng Peerson to Gjerde’s sociological mapping of ethnic adaptation, one truth emerges: Norwegian emigration was built parish by parish, neighbor by neighbor. Each journey began with a priest’s note in the church book, crossed the North Sea through British ports, and ended on an American prairie where dialect and hymns carried echoes of home.

References

Arkivverket. (2017). Emigrantprotokoller fra Oslo 1867–1966 (with county-rate notes). https://www.arkivverket.no/utforsk-arkivene/norges-dokumentarv/emigrantprotokoller-fra-oslo-1867-1966 Arkivverket

FamilySearch. (2025). Norway emigration and immigration (ports, routes). https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Norway_Emigration_and_Immigration

Flom, G. T. (1915). A history of Norwegian immigration to the United States from the earliest beginning down to the year 1848. Iowa City: Privately printed. Retrieved from https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46681

Gjerde, J. (1989). Patterns of migration to and demographic adaptation within rural ethnic American communities. Annales de Démographie Historique, 36(2), 138–149. https://www.persee.fr/doc/adh_0066-2062_1989_num_1988_1_1720

Holden, L. (2018). The Norwegian historic population register and migration (pp. 9–10). UiT. https://publ.nr.no/1548857259/HBR-Holden-Migration2018.pdf publ.nr.no

Lokalhistoriewiki. (2025). Utvandringen til Nord-Amerika (incl. fylke map 1866–1915; three waves; 1882 peak). https://lokalhistoriewiki.no/wiki/Utvandringen_til_Nord-Amerika

Lovoll, O. S. (2015). Across the deep blue sea: The saga of early Norwegian immigrants. Minnesota Historical Society Press.

Myhre, J. E. (2021). Emigration from Norway, 1830–1920. Nordics.info. https://nordics.info/show/artikel/emigration-from-norway-1830-1920 nordics.info

Nordics.info. (2021, September 8). Emigration from Norway, 1830–1920. https://nordics.info/show/artikel/emigration-from-norway-1830-1920

Norway Heritage. (2024). Tracing emigrants through Norwegian records. https://www.norwayheritage.com/norwegian-emigration-records.asp

Semmingsen, I. (1960). Norwegian emigration in the nineteenth century. Scandinavian Studies, 32(2), 87–109. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03585522.1960.10411427 tandfonline.com

Thorvaldsen, G. (2018). Emigrants in the Historical Population Register of Norway: Source material and definitional issues. UiT. https://munin.uit.no/bitstream/10037/14767/4/article.pdf Munin