The oldest church registers
in Norwegian parishes

Source: "Kjenn din slekt" ('Know your ancestry') by C.S. Schilbred.
Translation and corrections by Johan I. Borgos

 

I have prepared this text as a service for all the people who are searching their Norwegian roots. You may copy it for your own personal use, and you can give it to your friends, but please don't sell it for money! If you use it in your writings you should give credits to Mr. Schilbred's book - and to me for doing this job.

I advise you to read one of my other pages - Norwegian administrative units, where you can find information that may help you a lot in your study of the list below.

Some brief explanations:
- The Norwegian word for a parish is 'menighet'.
- Many of the older parish names are not in use any longer.
- Some of the old parishes have been split up, and some have been combined into bigger parishes.
- Information from a newly created parish may be found in the registers from an older parish unit it has been a part of.
- The spelling of each name may have changed quite a lot the last three hundred years. This list use fairly modern spellings.
- Don't exchange the special Norwegian letters æ, Æ, ø, Ø, å and Å with English substitutes.
- The given year in each case tells when the first preserved church register begin for that parish. There may have been older registers that are lost.
- In some cases gaps in the church register series are noted, but this information is not complete.
- The county names (in bold types) are written with their modern spelling.

Below are kommuner in which the editor's ancestors resided.

Oppland
Aurdal and Etnedal 1692
Biri and Snertingdal 1730
Fron 1799
Fåberg, Saksumdal, Mesna and Lillehammer 1730
Gausdal 1693
Gran, Brandbu and Tingelstad 1707
Jevnaker and Lunner 1718
Land 1708
Lesja, Lesjaskog and Dovre 1724
Lom, Garmo, Bøverdalen and Skjåk 1733
Ringebu, Fåvang, Venabygd and Sollia 1696
Slidre 1724
Toten, Kolbu and Balke 1695
Vang (Valdres), Øye and Hurum 1730
Vardal and Hunn incl. Gjøvik 1706
Vågå, Sel and Heidal 1739
Øyer and Tretten 1671