Help Understanding a Birth Place in Norway
I have a question about my 2x great-grandpa’s birthplace in Norway.
On his Naturalization papers (1922) he states he was born 1880 in Kongsvinger, Norway.
A cousin in Norway who is a lot more familiar with the family stated he was born and baptized in Austmarka. And went to school there.
I think the church record says he was born in Vinger, Hedmark?
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:683Z-LNWV
So, which is the correct one? If I were to write where he was born as specific as possible with this information, how would that look?
Would it be: Austmarka, Vinger, Hedmark, Norway?
If I’m understanding this, Vinger turned into Kongsvinger? If that correct, what’s with Austmarka? When I look on google maps, it goes to somewhere on the west. I know the Austmarka our cousin refers to is next to Lake Møkkeren.
I’m a bit lost when trying to understand places in Norway and the correct format of writing them. If anyone knows of a good video or website that explains it, shoot it my way.
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Your cousin is correct. If you look at the original record for your ancestor, Sigvard, you will see written in under the dates of the birth and christening, 13 April and 13 June, the parish where the birth and christening actually took place - "Østmarken (aka Austmarka)". In addition, the farm both the parents live on is "Gylterud" (which is also listed as a place in Østmarken/Austmarka. See this page in the FamilySearch Wiki: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Austmarka_%28%C3%98stmark%29_Parish%2C_Hedmark%2C_Norway_Genealogy ).
I am attaching an image with the parish name (Østmarken) and the farm name (Gylterud) highlighted:
Vinger and Østmark/Austmarka are both part of the Vinger Prestegjeld/District (see this article on Norway Prestegjeld: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Norwegian_Prestegjeld ) but the birth actually took place in Østmark/Austmarka on Gylterud farm.
If this was my family, I would put the place-of-birth as (starting with the smallest place and the going to the largest-ie farm > parish > county > country) Gylterud, Østmark (or Austmarka), Hedmark, Norway.
You could write the birth place as "Gylterud, Østmark (or Austmarka), Vinger, Hedmark, Norway" as long as people understand that Vinger, in this instance, is the "prestegjeld/district" and not the parish. The simplest and least confusing thing would be to just leave the Vinger out.
If you look at the Hedmark County map in the FamilySearch Wiki, you will see the parishes of Vinger and Østmark (in brown near the southern tip the county). See that map here: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Hedmark_County%2C_Norway_Genealogy .
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Couple of things about place names to start with. First off names change and boundaries change and you often need to study a bit of history to figure out what is going on with the names. Secondly, where someone says they are from depends a lot on the situation. If I'm from Podunk, Utah, just outside of Salt Lake City, and I'm off somewhere and someone asks me where I'm from, do I say Podunk, a tiny place they will have never heard of, or Salt Lake City because it's close enough, or Utah because that's all the person is interested in, or the Rocky Mountain West? So when people or records report where someone is from, it might or might not be very precise.
To start learning about place names, google has very good articles about every past and present municipality in Norway. Here is the one for Vinger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinger_%28municipality%29 . To quote it:
The prestegjeld of Vinger was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838… On 7 February 1855, the town of Kongsvinger (population: 472) was separated from Vinger municipality to become a separate urban municipality….
In 1864, the southern part of the municipality … was separated from Vinger to form the new municipality of Eidskog. … On 1 January 1876 a part of Vinger adjacent to the town of Kongsvinger containing 209 inhabitants was transferred to Kongsvinger…. On 1 January 1964, the municipality of Vinger was merged with the neighboring municipality of Brandval and the town of Kongsvinger which created a new Kongsvinger Municipality…
Pre-1838 there were no municipalities, just large parishes (prestegjeld) which were ecclesiastical divisions. It was in 1838 that these were given civil jurisdictions as municipalities. In all cases I have seen, the new municipalities had identical boundaries to the parishes. The parishes, but not the municipalities, were divided into one or more sub-parishes called sogn. Each sogn would have a church. Vinger parish containted Vinger, Austmarka, and Eidskog sub-parishes.
Sometimes things get confusing because the Norwegian words prestegjeld and sogn both translate to English as parish. Family Search therefore calls a prestegjeld a clerical district and a sogn a parish while the Norwegian Archives calls a prestegjeld a parish and a sogn a local parish.
For recording a place name, there isn't really a set standard. Some people use a four place system of:
Farm, Municipality, County, Country
Some use a five place:
Farm, Sogn, Municipality, County, Country,
You could even use a six place:
Farm, Sogn, Prestegjeld, Municipality, County, Country
In general it is best to use the place name as it was at the time of the event. This makes it possible to find records. A few rebels use the current place name.
Looking at the original of the record you posted, it shows that both his mother and father were living at Gylterud in Vinger. (The priest didn't cross the t. There is no place call Gyllerud in Vinger.) These are church records, so it gives the parish. This book, as you can tell by the citation, covers the entire parish or prestegjeld of Vinger. Sometimes that is all you get. However, in this case, if you look under the birth and christening date, you see Austmarka (spelled here Østmarken) so you do know which sub-parish he lived in and which church he was christened at.
Personally I would enter his information as:
- Birth: Gyllerud, Vinger, Hedmark, Norway (meaning Gyllerud farm, Vinger municipality)
- Christening Austmarka Kirke, Vinger, Hedmark, Norway. (meaning Austmarka Kirke, Vinger municipality)
I like to stick with the civil designations rather than ecclesiastical ones or mixing ecclesiastical and civil.
Here's information about the church: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austmarka_Church
Looking at the map, it appears Gylterud no longer exists as a named farm, but it was in this general area:
The original farm consisted of these sub-sections:
and your great-great-grandfather could have been born at any one of these sub-sections. You can see some of these names on the map. You can find these lists of property at https://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/stad/matr50
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Sorry, I don't have a good reference for you. I just got all this from a couple of decades rooting in the records and searching in maps.
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To clarify just a bit more, here is what I mean by not liking to mix civil place names and ecclesiastical place names.
This is the full strictly civil place name:
Gylterud, Vinger, Hedmark, Norway
That is, Gylterud farm/gård, Vinger municipality/kommune, Hedmark county/fylke, Norway
This is the full strictly ecclesiastical place name:
Gylterud, Austmarka, Vinger, Vinger og Oda, Hamar, Norway.
Gylterud farm/gård, Austmarka local-parish/parish/sogn, Vinger parish/clerical-district/prestegjeld, Vinger og Odal deanery/prosti, Hamar diocese/bispedømme, Norway.
I don't object to people putting the sogn (aka local-parish aka parish) in the middle of the civil name and would not take it out, but many of the older parish registers cover the entire prestegjeld and do not tell which sogn a person was christened in and even if it does, it only tells you which church an event took place in but not whether the people involved lived in that sogn. Generally a prestegjeld only had one priest and he would rotate between churches each week. If you had to get your child christened, you would go to the church the priest was at that week, not necessarily your "home" church, that is the church in your sogn.
Since the municipality and prestegjeld (aka parish aka clerical district) nearly always have the same name at least until the mid 1900s, it is still very easy to find the parish records using the municipality name.
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This is all such great information! I will be able to go through it better all in a couple of day, but want to acknowledge these comments. I appreciate it!
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Here is a map where I have very roughly drawn in the situation in 1880.
The purple line is Vinger municipality. The hole in it is Kongsvinger municipality.
The green line is Austmarka sogn or sub-parish. The part surrounded by purple but not green is Vinger sogn or sub-parish. Together the two sogn make up Vinger prestegjeld or parish which had the same boundaries as Vinger municipality.
The yellow line is even more roughly the area of the original Gylterud farm.
Today Gylterud farm is divided into about fifty parcels. You can get an idea of the original area by looking at this search:
then replacing the /1 in the search box with /2, then /3, then /4, then /5. The location markers will move to show parcels starting with the number 1, then the number 2, and so on.
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Sorry, that link didn't work right. Try this one:
(I can't test the link until I post the comment)
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Sorry again. It insists on showing only one section. So do this instead. Click either of those above links and in the search box type 3401-65/1 then, as I said, replace the final 1 with 2 then 3 then 4 then 5 to see all the sections of the farm.
3401 is the community number for Kongsvinger. 65 is the farm number for Gylterud. The number following the / is the first part of the section number.
One more thing to keep in mind. Many places and features in Norway share the same name which can get confusing. If you search for Austmarka, Kongesvinger in the map, you get:
- Austmarka the village
- Austmarka the church
- Austmarka the street
- Austmarka the school
What you do not get is Austmarka the sub-parish because it is not a civil place designation and it is not a geographical feature.
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This is all very helpful. I’ve gone through it a few times and copied it all for more study, which I will need plenty of. I think It’s mostly getting used to differentiating what “level” everything is and the civil vs. ecclesiastical. I just want to be as accurate as possible. It’s definitely going to take some practice.
I appreciate the information about the priest rotation between churches. That’s definitely something I want to keep in mind.
When you say Gylterud is the farm he was born on, does that mean their personal farm? Or a type of community area? I mean, whenever someone has Gylterud behind their name, it means they are from that specific farm? Or the area?
Thank you for the map, visuals are very helpful for me. I’m not sure how you can see what the original Gylterud farm was, though.
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In Norway prior to about 1930 four different types of last names were used.
Patronymics in which a person's last name was derived from the father's name and changed every generation:
- Grandfather: Hans Jonsson
- Father: Anders Hansson
- Son: Helge Andersson
Fixed Patronymics which were derived from a direct paternal ancestor's first name but stayed the same every generation. Not typically used with a patronymic:
- Grandfather: Hans Jonsson (patronymic)
- Father: Anders Jonsen (fixed patronymic)
- Son: Helge Jonsen (fixed patronymic)
Farm names which were derived from a person's residence and changed whenever a person moved. These were used by farm owners and their families. Usually used along with a patronymic:
- Grandfather: Hans Jonsson Brødbøl
- Father: Anders Hansson Brødbøl until he got married and moved to Gylterud and became Anders Hansson Gylterud.
- Son: Helge Andersson Gylterud
Family Names which were adopted by a family at some point in history then never changed. Sometimes used with a patronymic:
- Grandfather: Hans Rustung
- Father: Anders Rustung
- Son: Helge Andersson Rustung
Part of researching a family is figuring out what kind of last name the various people in the family used and then recording them correctly. This is complicated by the fact that a person could have used different types of last names at different times of life. Fortunately Family Tree makes it very easy to record every name a person ever used.
Your record for Sigvard is an interesting example. You need to find out more about his parents. For Berthe Gylterud you need to figure out if she was the daughter of a farm owner of one of the sections of Gylterud and would have used that as a last name or was she household help from somewhere else and would have not used it. Same with this father. Was he the son of a different farm owner on a neighboring section of Gylterud? If so then Gylterud was a true last name. Since his parents were not married, it would be Berthe's status that would determine whether Sigvard was Sigvard Edwardson Gylterud or just Sigvard Edwardson.
An important point about Norwegian last names is that you do have to be careful about interpreting them. Just because Jens Hansson and Anders Hansson lived on the same farm and both had fathers named Hans, you cannot assume they were related at all. You have to prove that they had the same father. Likewise if Jens Gylterud and Anders Gylterud are listed next to each other on a census, you cannot assume they are related and have to determine who their parents were. (This is not all that different than in the US. You can't take two people by the name of Smith and claim they are related because they have the same last name.)
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Norgeskart is the official map of Norway created and maintained by the Norwegian government's division called Kartverket. That is where the various links I've used jump to. To repeat myself, Kongsvinger is community 3401. Gytelrud is farm 65. The original Gylterud farm, which was quite large has been divided through history into sections 1 to 50 (in 1950, there were only 28 as shown in the chart I posted above). Not all of the 50 still exist. For the ones that do, you can search for them in the map and by their distribution get a sense for the original area of the farm. You can watch me do this in the video posted here. In the last part of the video I show how see the area of any one section. Unfortunately, you cannot see the boundary of all the sections at once.
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This is according to my cousin’s information coupled with some of what I found. Berte Marie Olsdatter Gylterud was the daughter of Ole Eriksen Gylterud and Karen Sofie Larsdatter Åserud. Berte and Edvard were somehow cousins and had Sigvart in 1880. Berte married Kristian Amündsen from Eidskog in 1884. There’s a whole story there. He took over Velta farm in Austmarka in 1885. which apparently belonged to a different ancestor, but I haven’t figured that out yet. My cousin writes everyone’s name, including Sigvart’s with Velta on the end.
Berte was born Gylterud, but switched to Velta after she married and moved to Velta farm. I notice on Family search someone has Gylterud behind her name. So does it stay the place you were born or changes as you move?
I actually have similar questions about Sigvart’s wife, who was from the west coast of Norway. I’m confused about that one a lot more. I’ll gather the information and post it if you’d be willing to take a look.
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Aw, the whole part of my comment about the video and map didn’t post for some reason.
Thank you for the video. I tried searching for Vælta farm, as it is apparently still there, but not sure how to find it.
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Yes, if you had a farm name for your surname, it would change when you moved to a new farm.
Illustrating this for Berte based on what you have written, I created this profile in beta.familysearch.org showing how I would enter her names:
Note: Velta is not a Married Name. Norwegian's generally did not use married names until about the mid 1900s. She adopted the Velta name not because she married Kristian but because she moved to the Velta farm.
In case you are not aware, all FamilySearch routines for hinting and checking for duplicates look at all names for the person, that is, the name under Vitals and all the names under Alternate Names.
(The beta site is a place you can practice. No changes are made to the real Family Tree. It is completely replaced with the current version of Family Tree about every six months.)
Since Berta was born at Gylterud and Sigvald was born there, it is appropriate to call him Sigvald Edwarsdsson Gylterud, at least until he moved somewhere else. If he was still living with with mother when she got married and moved with her, he would also then become Sigval Edwardsson Velta.
You can see this in death records such as here (click to enlarge):
Anfinn Ingvaldsson Isdal was born at the Grov farm in 1846 and so his name would have been Anfinn Ingvaldsson Grov at birth. But when he died in 1910, he was living at the Isdal farm and so his name at the time he died was Anfinn Ingvaldsson Isdal.
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To find Velta, just go to norgeskart.no and type Velta, Eidskog in the search box to get this:
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I should mention, the hard part about searching for a place on Norgeskart is that you do have to use the current name for the place. If you searched for Vælta with an æ, that is why you could not find it. Also, it helps if you know the current municipality the place is in to narrow the search.
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Oh, wow, I didn’t know about the beta versions. And the alternative names. I didn’t realize it does that. Great tips!
Okay, the Velta my cousin mentions is in Austmarka. Isn’t that in a different municipality than Eidskog? When i search Austmarka, it says it’s in Alver municipality. Maybe it’s no longer called Velta. In her documents she says the Velta farm still exists today, but was sold after Karl Velta ran it. Which is one of Sigvart’s half-brothers.
I really appreciate all your help. My great-aunts aren’t doing well, and I’m trying to get all this together about their grand and great-grandparents for them.
Alright, so using his wife Malena Hansen as example. I don’t have a cousin with clues for this one. I’m not sure where exactly her birth place is. I think the documents say her mother and father, Torger Hansen and Tobia Bergitte Larsdatter reside in Kolnes? I’m not sure what it says in the columns on the right, though. On Tobia and Torger’s marriage record, the birth places say Kolnes and Roth.https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:68QQ-HG5B?treeref=GC7S-RH4
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:68Q3-21C9?treeref=GC7S-RH4
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:68Q7-YBXH
Like how Sigvart put Kongsvinger as his birth place, Malena says Stavanger in her U.S. documents.
So, would they be:
Malena - Knoles, Karmoy, Rogaland, Norway
Torger - the same as Malena
Tobia - Roth, actually I’m not sure about where exactly Roth is.
But the FS transcriptions say the event is in Sola, Haland, Rogaland, Norway. Which is a different municipality, right? I don’t think they are from a farm like Sigvart was.
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My mistake, sorry. I should not have jumped to conclusions when I saw only the one instance of the farm name.
Here is Kristian and Berta in the 1891 census living at Velta: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/census/person/pf01052733003365
This census is late enough that the farm and section numbering is the same as today. Velta is section (bruk) 69 of farm 70 in Vinger. Looking at the 1950 property list, section 69 is called Holmen so there must have been some renaming of the sections. Here it is on the map: https://www.norgeskart.no/#!?project=norgeskart&layers=1002&zoom=13&lat=6665619.55&lon=350687.68&markerLat=6665619.546220007&markerLon=350687.68306322605&p=Seeiendom&showSelection=false&sok=3401-70%2F69,%20kongsvinger and it is very close to the village of Austmarka so would be in the sub-parish of Austmarka.
The main farm is Fagernes so I personally would enter the place name as: Velta, Fagernes, Vinger, Hedmark, Norway.
Here they are in the 1900 census: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/census/person/pf01037058002955
I'll have to take a look at the question about the other part of your family tomorrow after work.
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Regarding Malena and her parents, first I'll mention that you are working in a nice time period because the records are so complete. Also, the 1875, 1891, and 1900 census records really help to sort things out.
To begin with here is a geography/history lesson. Sola municipality did not exist until 1930. That was when Håland municipality was split in two to form Sola and Madla municipalities (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5land%2C_Norway ). That is why the indexed records have both Håland and Sola in the place names and source description. Prior to 1930 Sola was just a sogn or sub-parish in Håland parish.
I've found it to be very consistent that if a prestegjeld birth or marriage record has just a single term for a person's residence, that place is in that prestegjeld. If the register covers just one sogn, not the entire prestegjeld, the person may not be from that sogn but was still from that prestegjeld.
Therefore when looking at the marriage record for Torger and Tobia Bergitte, since it has just Kolnæs for Torger and just Roth for Tobia Bertitte, that means Kolnæs in Håland and Roth in Håland.
Likewise, looking at Malena's birth record, she was born at Kolnæs in Håland. I would give her birth place as Kolnæs, Håland, Rogaland, Norway. The parish register for her birth covers just Sola sogn so this means she was christened in Sola Kirke, Håland, Rogaland, Norway.
If you want to be extremely accurate, prior to 1919 Rogaland county was named Stavanger county, so technically these places were Kolnæs, Håland, Stavanger, Norway and Sola Kirke, Håland, Stavanger, Norway, meaning the county, not the city, but I don't see people do that very often. I think mainly because it is confusing.
Regarding whether any of this family was from a farm or not, in Malena's birth records her father is listed as Gdbr. Torger Hansen, that is Gårdbruker or Farmer. So at that point they were.
Here is the 1891 census for the family:
https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/census/person/pf01052932002512
At this time they are living in the village of Tananger. I'm not sure what is meant by Assumed Residence. You can see that the birth place for all of the family is listed as Håland, meaning the municipality and parish.
Here is a copy of Torger and Tobia Betitte's marriage record that includes their father's names: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/kb20070103330158
I am pretty sure this is Torger in the 1875 census living at Nordre Kolnæs but his mother is a widow by then: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/census/person/pf01052247000891
So going back to 1865 to make sure the father of this Torger is correct for your Torger gives this record: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/census/person/pf01038206000997 which does show the correct father, Hans Olsen.
Checking in 1875 for Tobia Betitte brings up this: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/census/person/pf01038206000710 showing the right residence and the right father.
When a location is in doubt, looking at the census to see surrounding properties can be helpful, particularly when farm numbers are given. Roth does not have a farm number in the 1875 census, however, so the next option is to look for surrounding properties. The three properties prior to Roth in the census lists are Risa Store, Risa Lille, and Uren. Risa is a bit south of Tananger, so Roth should be in the same general area. There is no place called Roth now, but there is Rott. Checking in the 1900 census, there is no Roth, but only Rott which is also next to Risa Store, Risa Lille, and Uren on the listing. So I would be confident that Roth and Rott are the same place and that that is where Tobia Betitte came from.
Here are these places on the map:
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Thank you Gordon. I have a lot to digest with this.
My grandaunt says she thought Malena’s father Torger worked on a ship. She’s not sure in what way, though. So it’s interesting it says farmer. At least at that point. Maybe it was when he was younger.
So Tobia is from that island called Rott? I definitely want to look into that more.
Seriously, Gordon, you have been such a great help. I appreciate it so much. I’m slowly going through each piece you have provided and trying to get a better grasp of it. Plus, add learn Norwegian and Danish to my to do list.
I continue to have questions, but I’m going to put what I have together using this information so far, including the map, and get it to my grandaunt since she has gotten worse.
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Humm…
1865 census (link above) Torger is 14, no occupation listed.
1875 census (link above) Torger - forestaar Gaardsdriften = manages farm operations.
1891 census (link above) Torger - no occupation listed but is no longer living on a farm.
1900 census https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/census/person/pf01037252013965 - Torger - Kjører = Driver.
1910 census https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/census/person/pf01036615025906 - Torger - Sjøhus faarman ved en Ansjovisafdeling - Supervisor at a seafood plant in the anchovies department.
1920 census https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/census/person/pf01073935012471 - Torger - forlager paa Hermetikfabrik - manager at canning factory.
So he had a few different occupations. Can't tell you whether his responsibilities in 1910 or 1920 involved going out on the fishing boats as well as processing the catch. And who knows what he was doing in 1891.
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Your great-aunt might be interested in this. In the 1920 census, Torger and Tobie Bergite with four of their children were living at Apartment 2, Normanns gate 12, Stavanger.
Looking at the map, house number 12 doesn't exist any more, but the surrounding numbers do so you can still imagine where it was. Here is a view of Stavanger with the pointer on Normanns gate 11.
Zooming in a few times:
I have no idea if the building in this area are the same ones that were there 100 years ago. It is very possible they are. In any event, No. 12 should have stood where the building with address Pedersgata 54 now stands since it is right between Normanns gate 10 and Normanns gate 14. It is possible that some remodeling occurred that moved the main entrance of the building from Normanns gate to Pedersgata.
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Going to Goole Maps and Street View, here is what you see when standing in the intersection of Normanns gate and Pedersgata and turning in a circle:
This is looking east down Pedersgata. The corner white building to the left is Pedersgata 54 and might have at one time been Normanns gate 12 if the main entrance used to be where that black panel is. Again, whether this building is the one that stood there in 1920 I can't tell you. You'd have to check with the city and review property records.
Here is what you see turning clockwise to look south down Normanns gate:
Then west down Pedersgata:
Then north up Normanns gate:
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Thanks Gordon. I showed her the area on the computer. My other grandaunt’s husband told me they went to Stavanger in the 80s but couldn’t find where her grandma had lived. It’s not clear if they actually had an address to look for or they were looking in general.
Also, she gave me a picture of Malena’s brothers. They appear to be wearing sailor type attire, so I think she might’ve mixed up that information with Malena’s dad.
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