Assistance requested with a standardized place name
I have not been able to find an appropriate standardized name for sources from Folda/ Rørstad / Nordfold / Kjerringoy area, Nordland, Norway. One that HELPS find records..
Parish books are found on the Digital Archive at https://media.digitalarkivet.no/kb/contents/16648
FamilySearch has a lot of records that, in a search, come up as a generic "Nordland, Norway." Looking into them, they are usually given as Folda. Yet that is not a standardized place.
I realize these borders shifted at different times.
Thanks for your help.
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I was out of town with just my iPod when I first read your post and couldn't really the sort of investigating or posting your statements here required. Since no one else has made any comments, I'll make a few.
First off, I did take a look for Folda in the Places database and when I first did back on July 3, it was entered just as Folden which was it's spelling back when it actually existed. Looking today, I see that Folda has been entered as an alternate spelling. That should help somewhat, at least in entering information in Family Tree.
Looking in the places database, I do see that Folda (whose main church was Rørstad church so it was sometimes called that), Sørfold, Nordfold-Kerringøy, Nordfold, and Kerringøy are all there in their prestegeld/municipality form along with some historical information about when they existed as that and about boundary changes. Generally sogn are not included in the Places database.
Sørfold: https://www.familysearch.org/research/places/?focusedId=551293
Nordfold-Kerringøy: https://www.familysearch.org/research/places/?searchTypeaheadInputText=nordfold-kjerringøy&text=nordfold-kjerringøy
It sound like the main trouble you are running into is the "auto-standardization" FamilySearch carried out on their historical record databases as discussed here: https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/125985/auto-standardization/p1
Looking for records from Folden and the municipalities created from it, the first ones that come up all show the problem that the original event place of Folda, Nordland, was auto-standardized to just Nordland, such as in this one: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:687Y-J3ZM
We been asked to report all these so that they can be corrected. I've gone ahead and done that here: https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/127742/error-report-auto-standardization-folden-nordand-changed-to-just-nordland/p1?new=1
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Thank you Gordon.
I am recently putting together a couple families in this area. In an attempt to make the FamilySearch computer spit out more record hints, I have alternated place names. E.g. I may put in a marriage as Rørstad, Sørfold, and another source as Kjerringøy, Nordland, Norway. I would like to use something consistent. This is roughly 1780-1850 so predates the more modern municipalities. What would you suggest?
And then there is the whole issue of Norwegian farm names standardized to - anywhere in the world.
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If you read completely through the https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/125985/auto-standardization/p1 (it will take some time!) you will see that the right people are fully aware of the farm names getting horribly wrong auto-standardization forms. As you find these, do report them under the Search category in Communities so they can get gradually fixed.
As for searching, I have not done any work in Nordland. The indexes for the areas in Hordaland my wife's relatives are from are in much better shape. So I don't really have any suggestions for you, I'm sorry to say. I personally find it best to work through the Digitalarkivet's search system, mainly because I can work in just one parish at a time which solves your problem right there and usually find that after getting in all the family information from there, hints from the FamilySearch databases start showing up.
Going here to the advanced person search: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/search/persons/advanced
and entering Sørfold, Nordfold, and Kjerringøy under Geography (they don't list Folda or Folden since it no longer exists) and your 1780 to 1850 date range gives this result: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/search/persons/advanced?from=&to=&m%5B%5D=1844&m%5B%5D=1846&m%5B%5D=1845&firstname=&lastname=&birth_year_from=&birth_year_to=&birth_date=&birth_place=&domicile=&position=&event_year_from=1780&event_year_to=1850&event_date=&related_first_name=&related_last_name=&related_birth_year=
which you can then narrow down by adding personal information and other search criteria. The FamilySearch databases are just a copy of these Norwegian National Archives databases so you will find all the information at the archives, and more, that you would find on Family Search.
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The other nice thing about using Digitalarkivet is that you are nearly always adding place names from a menu so there is never any doubt about the proper name to use. Generally you can start with the more modern (that is pre 1915) municipality name because when the municipalities were first created in 1838, in all cases I have run across, the municipality was named after the pre-1838 prestegjeld it was created from. Folden municipality in 1838, for example, had exactly the same boundaries as Folden prestegjeld in 1837.
The Digitalarkivet search system does a pretty good job at accounting for this as you can see in my broad search where I could only put in Sørfold, Nordfold, and Kjerringøy. All the results I scanned through were from Folden.
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