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Historical Norwegian Maps Online: Great Genealogy Resource!
Recently we heard from Gordon in Billings, Montana, U.S.A, who passed on news about historical Norwegian maps online now at their National Map 
Works. He says:
“I have been enjoying your podcasts for a couple of years now, so I though I would pass on a piece of information that some of your listeners might want to hear about.
I don’t know how many of them do research in Norway like I do but I suspect that most of the ones that do, do not make a habit of reading the Norwegian newspapers. Since my wife was born in Norway, we do read her hometown paper on a regular basis. Just yesterday, that paper, Bergens Tidende, had an article reporting that the “Statens Kartverk” (the National Map Works) has recently digitized and posted on-line 8000 historical maps of Norway. (Click here for the article.)
Unfortunately, the website for the maps has not put a link in their English section yet, but there isn’t much to read beyond place names on the maps anyway. You can view the maps here.
Just choose a county, click the green button, and see a wonderful collection of maps for anyone with ancestors from Norway.”
Thanks for the tip, Gordon! I’ll add this tip of my own: Open the website in Chrome and Chrome will automatically offer to translate the website. Simply click the Translate button, like you’ll see below:
Disaster Planning for Genealogists and More: New FTM Podcast
Autumn gives me the urge to organize and prepare for the future. That’s why I think the new Family Tree Magazine podcast episode is especially timely.
Lisa hosts the September 2014 Family Tree Magazine podcast with these highlights:
- News from the Blogosphere with Diane Haddad;
- Preservation tips from the Family Archivist columnist, Denise Levenick;
- Digital archiving websites from the current 101 Best Websites list;
- Genealogy estate planning with Family Tree University dean Tyler Moss;
- and roundup preparedness tips from Publisher Allison Dolan.
For more on disaster planning for genealogists, check out our four-part blog post series on it. Click here for the first one.
Getting the Right Place Names on Your Family Tree
Do you ever find yourself scratching your head about which of many local place names to record for a family event? A question on this comes in from podcast listener Joanne K.:
“On FamilySearch I found birth and marriage records of a direct ancestor, then other ancestors and potentials. The records show they were christened or married in Gossersweiler, Bayern. I subsequently obtained a New York marriage record of the direct ancestors wherein both husband and wife list their place of birth as Volkersweiler, Bayern. A search shows this is ½ mile from Gossersweiler. I assume Gossersweiler is the parish church for the village of Volkersweiler. So therefore, for these two people, I can record Volkersweiler as the place of birth and Gossersweiler as the place of baptism, correct?
My bigger question is, what do I record as the place of birth for all the other family members I have found? Can I show a place of birth if all I have is a christening record or marriage record from Gossersweiler? I believe I would find that they were mostly born in Volkersweiler but know I can’t record this as a fact. I also have no wish at this time to get documents from Germany for all these family members.”
Joanne, I can’t speak to whether Gossersweiler is where the folks from Volkersweiler went to church: you’d have to ask a German expert. But you got the basics right: record each event separately as you found it. For the couple, this means the birthplace in Volkersweiler and the christening and marriage in Gossersweiler. For the other relatives, you don’t have residence information yet–just christening and marriages in Gossersweiler. Enter those specific events and let the data stand alone. That way, in the future when you–or someone following in your footsteps–return to research these other relatives in more depth, you’ll know exactly what is what. It doesn’t hurt to enter your guess on the birthplaces (and why) in notes in individual records. That can provide additional clues to future research without confusing anyone.
Not sure you’re using the right place names on your family tree? It can be tricky to determine local place names when there’s a village and a parish or other overlapping jurisdictions. Check out this post to learn about a great online tool for determining standardized place names.
