When entering a source, which parish name do I use?
From what I understand, there's a municipality name, then within that, there are several parishes and often a main parish is named after the municipality? So is the parish name where an event was recorded the last parish in the list of parishes, or is it the first name in the list? Attached is an example of what I mean. In this case, is the record located in the Skoger parish or the Strømsgodset local parish? Hope that makes sense. Thanks very much for your help.
Answers
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You can ignore the municipality. In Norway the population is thinly spread out. They built multiple church buildings that were all staffed by just one priest. One parish is the main parish where the priest lived and the rest are the annexes that he would travel to. Often all of the records are in the same book so you have to read each entry to see what parish the event occurred in.
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You generally do not need to ignore the municipality because when municipalities were first organized in 1838, I think it was, they were organized along parish lines and given the same names. You also do not need to repeat the name twice.
For example, if I enter that someone was born in Stord, Hordaland, Norway, in 1875 you have no way of telling if I mean Stord prestegjeld or Stord Kommune. You also don't need to know because there is absolutely no difference.
This starts to break down in the mid to late 1900s as the civil and clerical division start to drift from one another. Often you need to look at each individual case to decide what will most clearly describe a location rather than sticking with general rules.
Regarding prestegjeld (here translated parish) and sogn (here translated as local parish), you cannot always tell from the records exactly were an even occurred. When a parish record or Ministerialbok covered several local parishes, sometimes there would be a Klokkerbok or copy of the main book that covered just the local parish. But not always.
For example, in the records for Stord parish in the early 1800s, the record covered both Stord local parish and Fitjar local parish and there is absolutely no way to tell in which local parish an event took place.
In the records for Finnås parish, however, the priest wrote M, Br, or Bø in the margin of each entry to signify whether the event took place at Moster, Bremnes, or Bømlo local parish church.
Keep in mind also, that even if you know at which church, that is, in which local parish, an event took place, you still do not know in which local parish the family lived since they might have gone to whichever church the priest was at that Sunday.
So what I do, and what many other users of Family Tree do, is enter place names like this for, for example, a birth/christening:
If the sogn (local parish) is indicated in the record:
Birth: farm, parish/munincipality (prestegjeld), county (fylke), country
Christening: church (sogn), parish/munincipality (prestegjeld), county (fylke), country
Birth: Vikanes, Stord, Hordaland, Norway
Christening: Fitjar Kirke, Stord, Hordaland, Norway
If only the prestegjeld (parish) is indicated in the record:
Birth: farm, parish/munincipality (prestegjeld), county (fylke), country
Christening: parish/munincipality (prestegjeld), county (fylke), country
Birth: Vikanes, Stord, Hordaland, Norway
Christening: Stord, Hordaland, Norway
To go back to your example, the events in the record took place in Skoger prestegjed, but unless the record itself states which sogn, it may have taken place in Skoger sogn, Konnerud sogn, or Strømsgodset sogn and you will not be able to tell which.
Opening the image you posted, I do see that the lower section (which is not shown in the thumbnail for some reason) has:
So this particular burial took place at Str. K, that is Strømsgodset Kirke, the church for Strømsgodset local parish.
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You may use the name of the prestegjeld (clerical district) or the annex parish. If you use Skoger, Vestfold (the name of the clerical district) or the name of the parish it is correct. However if someone wanted to find the person, let us say in a birth record, it would be faster if they knew the parish within the clerical district. Let say he or she was born in Strømgodset local parish it would be faster to look for the birth in the parish he or she was listed. If the name of the prestegjeld was used, a person may have to search through all the parishes to find the person.
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Let me clarify something now so that there is no confusion due to differences in translation:
This is why I try to stick with the terms Prestegjeld and Sogn.
1) A prestgjeld can contain just one sogn which will almost always have the same name as the prestegjeld.
2) A prestegjeld can cover several sogn and usually one of the sogn will have the same name as the prestegjeld it is in, but not always. Each sogn will have its own church.
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Thank you for these details! I've copied this info into my research notes for future reference. I was wondering if that lower portion of the record was significant, so now I know to watch for any records that have that and what it means. Thank you again for your help.
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Thank you!
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