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| Anna Olette Anundsen, abt. 1900, in Brooklyn |
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| Anna Olette with her family in Norway, from left: Ingeborg, Ingeborg (mother), Gunda, Lovise, Anund (father), Anna Olette, Anna Oline |
Three of my four grandparents were immigrants, so as my genealogy research has progressed back into the 19th century, by necessity I've become somewhat acquainted with reviewing records in Norwegian, Swedish and Polish.
But navigating foreign national archives online can be quite challenging with a steep learning curve. Even though English translations may be provided, frequently they are not available consistently throughout a foreign web site, so that clicking on a link may land you on a non-English page. Also, researching ancestors from several different foreign countries means that, even though you may become comfortable navigating a foreign-based web site for one ancestor, it may be months or even years before you return to that web site, necessitating re-education as to how to find the records needed.
Emigration Records
So it was with some reluctance and trepidation that I returned to a post I started six years ago about finding my Norwegian grandmother's emigration and parish records in the Norwegian Digital Archives.
Much to my surprise, one of the two links saved years ago for the emigration record is still valid. One click and I'm at the record:
http://digitalarkivet.arkivverket.no/gen/vis/8/pe00000000512314
As I already had my grandmother's passenger ship record showing her arrival in the U.S. in 1897 (see image below), the Norwegian Digital Archives record is a very nice complement, showing her departure from Norway.
As I already had my grandmother's passenger ship record showing her arrival in the U.S. in 1897 (see image below), the Norwegian Digital Archives record is a very nice complement, showing her departure from Norway.
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| 21-year-old Anna Anundsen arriving in New York with $2.50 to visit her uncle Andreas Roberg |
The path I followed years ago to the parish records no longer worked, but it was pretty straightforward to locate Anna Olette's birth record with the information I had saved (county, parish, birth year, page number). Once I found the record, I was having trouble downloading it without logging in, but a quick post to the Norwegian Genealogy Facebook page resolved that problem (just right-click and 'save image as...'). And even better, another FB user in that group explained how to find the permanent link to the birth record. Once on the page with the birth record, click on the icon with the three vertical dots on the far right ('References'). The 'Permanent image ID', 'Quick link' and 'Permanent image-link' information will be listed. Here is the permanent image-link for Anna Olette's birth record:
http://urn.digitalarkivet.no/URN:NBN:no-a1450-kb20060629040447.jpg
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| Entry 71, 2nd from bottom is for Anna Olette |
And here is how I navigated to find the image initially:
1. Go to https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/
2. Go to Explore Digitised Archive Material, then Church Books, then Browse Norwegian Church Books
3. In the left panel, fill out the fields in 'Search for church books' and press return:
- For County, select Telemark
- For Parish, select Sannidal
- For Church book type, select Parish register (official)
- For From year and To year, enter 1876
4. Select the first result: Sannidal kirkebøker and then click on First page
5. At the top of the image at the front of the book, on the right, you'll see 'Page' followed by 'mangler' which translates to 'missing' as the first two pages of the book are not numbered. Either page forward to page 34 or simply enter '34' in the box labelled 'mangler'. Anne Olette's entry, with a birth date of September 17th, is the second from the bottom of the page.
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| Anna and Axel Strom |
