Death Record Translation in Norway
In Romfo, Sunndal, More og Romsdal, Norway I have a death record for Knud Olsen from Gjøraløkken on page 331 line 3. Can I get a translation of the record to see if it gives me any more hints to find more records (Does it say who the spouse is, how he died, etc.)? Thanks!
https://media.digitalarkivet.no/en/view/2293/338
Answers
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On the old “teach a man to fish” principle, let’s take a look at this record. The first step is to figure out the column headings by converting from Fraktur to an easier font. If you haven’t read that typeface much, here is a good reference table:
https://web.library.yale.edu/cataloging/music/fraktur
No.
Den opgivne Dødsdag.
Begravelses Datum
Den Begravedes fulde Navn og Stand
Alder
Opholdsted
Om død af smitsom Sygdom, og da hvilken, eller ved ulykkelig hændelse.
Then translate to English. Since this is older Norwegian some of the words are more Danish than modern Norwegian so you may have to get creative in a dictionary or Google Translate to figure these out.
Number.
The reported death date
Burial date
The deceased’s (literally: the person buried’s) full name and position
Age
Residence
If died of a contagious sickness, and if so which, or by an unlucky occurrence.
I’m being fairly literal here to show the correspondence of the words.
Here is Google Translates version of the final column:
About death of infectious Disease, and then which, or by unfortunate event.
Not bad. I did set the translator to “Detect Language” and google declared it Danish.
So now you know what to expect in the record and where to find it. So your question about more information, such as spouse, cause of death, etc, is halfway answered. If the information in the record fully matches the column heading, then no, there will not be.
Moving on to the record itself, to get every word, first you need a good transcription. This is the hardest part.
3
“ 23
“ 29
Knud Olsen Gjørasløkken gift Mand, Ind??
32
Rømfo
(no cause of death listed)
Replacing the ditto marks:
3
Januar 23
Januar 29
Knud Olsen Gjørasløkken gift Mand, Ind??
32
Rømfo
(no cause of death listed)
Then translate:
3
January 23
January 29
Knud Olsen Gjørasløkken married man, ???
32
Rømfo
(no cause of death listed)
I’ve been staring at his position and can’t make it out as any term I recognize. Maybe someone else here can help.
Something interesting on this page is that almost everyone has a residence of Hoff or Rømfo which makes me think the priest was not recording their actual place of death but just the parish. Since this was 1854, most likely the last part of their full name, that is the listed farm name, was also where they were living at time of death. So Knud probably died at Gjørasløkken. In the few places were the residence is not Hoff or Rømfo, it is sometimes different than the person’s farm name as listed under Full Name.
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It reads Knud Olsen [of] Gjørusløkken age 32 died 23 January and was buried 29 January 1854 of Romfo. He was married to a name not easy to read Her last name is Andersdatter. Check the marriage records from around 1830 and to the time he died.
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