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KFO News

Norwegian Digital Archive Records

Every year there are more and more Web sites that help us research the records in Norway.  In his day,  Torleif had to visit the National Archives in Oslo and go to individual parishes to obtain records.  Today the University of Bergen in Norway has been digitizing the Norwegian archives and they’re becoming available on-line at http://digitalarkivet.uib.no.  This site has several other census years along with civic records, too.  Some of the pages are available in English.

Example of the 1900 Census in NORWAY

On the Knaphus farm in the parish of Vats we can see the following information about the family:

Lars L. Knaphus           Head of House    Tennant farmer & Painter       Born 1843               (age 57)

Liva S. Knaphus           Wife                  Takes care of household       Born 1847               (age 53)

Jørgine L. Knaphus       Daughter           Helps in the house & w/cattle   Born 1876               (age 24)

Martin L. Knaphus         Son                                                       Born 1886               (age 14)

Andreas L. Knaphus      Son                                                       Born 1888               (age 12)
NOTE: The census states that Lars L. had a temporary residence in Ølen where he was painting during the census.  He painted the churches and houses in other parishes quite a bit. 

 

Lars and his children had the middle initial of “L.” for Larsen – this is their patronymic name.  Many of the children kept Larsen as their middle name throughout their lives.   NOTE: Andreas changed his name to Andrew when he immigrated to Richfield, Utah.

 

Also notice that Torleif is not listed in the Census in Vats.  At that time he was almost 19 years old.  From his journal, we know that he was in Stavanger participating in sports and working as a painter. 

So we look up Stavanger in the 1900 Census and find:

 

 Toleiv L. Knaphus Male Apprentice Painter   Born 1881 in Vats     

 

NOTE: The census states he lived in a 2nd floor, 3-room apartment (with a kitchen) with some roommates.  This verifies where he lived.

 

However, census records are a secondary source of information versus a primary source, which includes birth and death certificates, or a parish record.  As we can see the census record is written down by a census taker and has inherent errors like his name is spelled “Torleiv” – how it sounded to the census taker.

 - Taken Abt. 1898 in Norway -

Torleif’s brothers: (l to r) Sakarias (+/- 16 years old), Martin (+/- 12) & Andreas (+/- 10)

Torleif would have been (+/- 18), therefore at sea at the time of this photo