Genealogy
Our genealogical services
Genealogy is about getting to know one's relatives, usually ancestors. Most of us know our parents, grandparents and some great-grandparents. But where do they come from, and what significance can one's ancestors have for one?
We can help you with this work, whether you want to do most of it yourself or whether we will set up your family tree on your behalf. If you wish, we can also create a descendant chart of one of your ancestors. In the last 200 years, immigration to Norway has increased significantly compared to the past. However, migration has always taken place, both to and from Norway. Many of us come from minorities or foreigners. We focus on Norwegian minorities in our work. When Norway was established as a state, Sami was already present down to Lake Femunden in Southern Norway. Kvener, or Finns, first came to Norway in the 16th century. Jews from the Baltics travelled to Scandinavia in the middle of the 19th century and are today the ancestors of most Norwegian Jews and their descendants. Genealogy is, therefore, exciting and educational!
Jewish genealogy
Like Kvens, Jews also emigrated to Norway from Russia due to bad
harvests and oppression from the Russian authorities. Although the majority of Jewish migrants chose to go to the USA, South Africa,
South America and Australia. Several hundred Jews came to Norway from the Litvak-Jewish language and culture area of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (LDK). This area includes southern Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, northern Poland and northern parts of Ukraine. Some stayed only a short time in Norway before continuing to America or returning to their country of origin to bring their spouses.
Jewish immigration to Norway led to the establishment of clothing stores in several fishing villages and towns. Despite their
relatively small size, Norwegian Jews made a name for themselves in science, healthcare, sports and business. Unfortunately, a third of
the Norwegian Jews were arrested by the Norwegian police during the
WWII and killed by the Germans in Auschwitz.
Today, most Norwegian Jews have roots in LDK. Our database contains
the names of most of the Litvak Jews who came to Norway. It also contains information about many of the migrants' ancestors and descendants. We have also documented memories from the shtotls and shtetls (Jewish communities) the Norwegian Litvak Jews left.
Sami genealogy
Sami strongly connects to the Finno-Ugric Sami language and culture. The Sami are an indigenous people in Norway. The Sami term for Samiland, Sápmi, may be related to the Finnish word for Finland, Suomi, and Proto-Baltic źemē, Lithuanian žemu and Latvian zeme, meaning "land" or "earth".
Sami has lived in large parts of Norway, from Finnmark in the north and south to Engerdal, south of Lake Femunden. Therefore, Norwegians and Sami have often formed families together. Today's population with ancestry from Sami areas may consequently have Sami ancestors. The Sami traditionally is a nomadic people who moved across national borders. We can see this because the Sami language extends across national borders. Northern Sami has been spoken in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.
Kven or Norwegian-Finnish Genealogy
"Kvener" is often used for the early Finnish immigration to Troms and Western Finnmark. In contrast, the descendants of the later Finnish immigration to Eastern Finnmark are usually called "Norwegian Finns". Most immigrants were primarily middle-income farmers and foresters. They were seeking a better life due to difficult years and Russian rule. Kvens and Norwegian Finns traditionally spoke an old-fashioned Finnish language and had a common cultural background. The religion was the same as that of the local, ethnic Norwegian population. Kvens often formed families with Norwegians and Sámi. If you have six generations of ancestors living in Troms or Finnmark, you can have both Kven or Norwegian-Finnish, Sami, Southern Norwegian and foreign ancestry.
We also search Finnish and other relevant archives in this work. In addition to ancestry from several countries, we also have Sami and Kven roots.
F.A.Q.
Some of the most Frequently Asked Questions we get on the topic.
The scope of the work depends on where the source is, the complexity and what the customer wants. Usually we find most ancestry back to around 1800.
In 2023, the hourly fee is from 20–50 euros, excluding costs, depending on the scope of the work. The price is higher when we travel to archives located outside Vilnius.
In addition to Norwegian archives, we often obtain data from Swedish, Danish and Jewish archives. Most Norwegian Jews re-emigrated from Sweden. Many sources have been transcribed, photographed and digitized by volunteers, e.g. by members of the Church of the Last Saints, Ancestry, My Heritage and Norwegian genealogists. This facilitates and makes the family data available.
Valuable data has been made available by the Jewish museums in Oslo and Trondheim, the Norsk Folkemuseum and the National Archives, all of which disseminate Jewish data. Important here is primary data from the questionnaires that approx. 1,300 Norwegian Jews had to submit in 1942. The shtetl archives in Lithuania were made available to Jewish researchers who translated them into English and published them under the portal JewishGen. In addition, we obtain data from Yad Vashem in Israel, Unesco’s Arolsen Archives, and the Israeli Yizkor books, where memories from the old country are preserved. Many Norwegian Jews have also written books about their family.
Much knowledge has been lost since most migrants did not talk much about the old country to their children. The exceptions are very few. Nevertheless, significant amounts of preserved knowledge are unknown to many descendants. For many, the general interest in getting to know the shtetls and their relatives has only come recently after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Internet, which made it possible to work on disseminating what has been preserved.
