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Norway Social Life and Customs

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To be effective in family history research, it is often helpful to understand the society your ancestor lived in. Learning about everyday life, religious practices, customs, and traditions will help you appreciate your ancestor and often give you ideas for research. Those that might affect your research strategy include mortality rates, life spans, apprenticeship customs, and courting and marriage customs that affected illegitimacy rates.

  • The infant mortality rate was high in most areas of Norway before the 20th century.
  • This is unfortunately in Norwegian. Adults had a shorter life span than they do today, so it is necessary to search the death records in order to get a complete picture of a family.
  • About the time of confirmation (between the ages of 14 and 20), young people often left home to earn their own living or to prepare themselves to do so. A young man may have signed a contract for a five-year apprenticeship to learn a trade such as shoe making, barrel making, or rope making. A young woman may have become a servant in a well-to-do household or lived with relatives to learn housekeeping.
  • Norwegian marriage customs go back hundreds of years and have been changed very little by outside influences. For a long time, most of the population followed the custom that marriages took place in private. Therefore, when a young couple and their families had agreed to the marriage, they and the community around them considered them as if married. Because of this custom, the birth of the first child often occurred soon after the marriage was formalized in the church.
  • The birth of illegitimate children was not uncommon. In many cases, a promise of marriage had been made or the father may have died before the formal marriage could take place.

Publications

Topic Time period Resource Locations Covered
Social life and customs Aagot Noss. Adolph Tiedemand og folk han møtte: studiar frå reisene i norske dalføre - akvarellar, målstykke og teikningar. Oslo, Norway: Norsk folkemuseum, Universitetsforlaget , 1981 Norway
Social life and customs Alex. Thorsøe. Af familien Ankers album: danske og norske interiører : kulturhistorisk frihaandstegning. Copenhagen, Denmark: Axel Andersens Forlag, 1902 Norway
Social life and customs Harald Winge. At home in rural Norway. [Salt Lake City, Utah]: Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1980 Norway
Social life and customs 1800s Ann Urness Gesme. Between rocks and hard places: traditions, customs, and conditions in Norway during the 1800s, emigration from Norway, the immigrant community in America. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Gesme Enterprises, 1993 Norway
Social life and customs 1700s and 1800s Jørgen Eliassen og Sølvi Sogner. Bot eller bryllup: ugifte mødre og gravide bruder i det gamle samfunnet. Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1981 Norway
Social life and customs Sune Åkerman, Hans Chr. Johansen and David Gaunt. Chance and change: social and economic studies in historical demography in the Baltic area. Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1986 Norway
Social life and customs Einar Hovdhaugen. Ekteskap og kjønnsmoral i norsk historie. Oslo, Norway: Det Norske Samlaget, 1976 Norway
Family Life David Gaunt. Familjeliv i Norden. [S.l.] : Gidlunds, 1983 Norway
Social life and customs Knut Fægri, Gunnar Hagen Hardtvedt, Finn P. Nyquist. Fjordheimen: Vestlandets fjorder, folk og samfunn, før og nå. Oslo, Norway: Grøndahl, 1981 Norway
Social life and customs 800 to 1990 Floyd M. Martinson. Growing up in Norway, 800 to 1990. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992 Norway
Social life and customs Einar Hovdhaugen. Husmannstida. Oslo, Norway: Det Norske Samlaget, 1975 Norway
Social life and customs Identitet - en ressurs for konkurransedyktige storbyer og storbyregioner?. Oslo, Norway: Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt, 2006 Norway
Social life and customs 1850-1990 Ning de Coninck-Smith, Bengt Sandin and Ellen Schrumpf. Industrious children : work and childhood in the Nordic countries 1850-1990. Odense, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1997 Norway
Social life and customs Kåre Olsen. Krigens barn- de norske krigsbarna og deres mødre. Arkivmagasinet - 12. Årg. (1998) - Årg. 12, nr. 3. 1998 Norway
Social life and customs late Middle Ages Torstein Jørgensen, Gastone Saletnich. Letters to the Pope : Norwegian relations to the Holy See in the late Middle Ages. Stavanger, Norway: Misjonshøgskolens forlag, 1999 Norway
Social life and customs Harald Winge. Life in the cities of Norway. [Salt Lake City, Utah]: Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1980 Norway
Social life and customs Ragnhild Hutchison. Lokale tråder: tråkling gjennom tekstil- og lokalhistorie. Oslo, Norway: Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt, 2006 Norway
Social life and customs Oscar Albert Johnsen. Norges bønder: utsyn over den norske bondestands historie. Kristiania, Norway: H. Aschehoug & Co., 1919 Norway
Social life and customs Charles Loring Brace. The Norse-Folk: or, a visit to the homes of Norway and Sweden. New York, New York: Charles Scribner, 1857 Norway
Social life and customs Anders Bugge. Norsk kulturhistorie: billeder av folkets dagligliv gjennem årtusener. Oslo, Norway : Cappelens, 1942 Norway
Social life and customs 1650-1800 Finn-Einar Eliassen. Norsk småbyføydalisme?: grunneiere, huseiere og husleiere i norske småbyer ca. 1650-1800. Oslo, Norway: Den Norske Historiske Forening, 1999 Norway
Social life and customs Arne Berg. Norske gardstun. Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1968 Norway
Social life and customs Bent Vanberg. Norwegian Bunads. Oslo, Norway: Hjemmenes Forlag, 1982 Norway
Social life and customs Bent Vanberg. Of Norwegian ways. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Dillion Press, 1970 Norway
Social life and customs 1735-1865 Michael Drake. Population and society in Norway, 1735-1865. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 1969 Norway
Social life and customs Harald Winge. Slekt & lokalsamfunn. Oslo, Norway: Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt, 1998 Norway
Social life and customs 1700-1940 Neil Kent. The soul of the north: a social, architectural and cultural history of the Nordic countries, 1700-1940. London, England: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2001 Norway
Social life and customs Knut Helle. Vestlandets historie. Bergen, Norway: Vigmostad & Bjorke, 2006 Norway
Social life and customs Kristofer Visted. Vor gamle bondekultur. Kristiania, Norway: J.W. Cappelens Forlag, 1923 Norway
Social life and customs Einar Hovdhaugen. Vårt møte med døden. Oslo, Norway: Det Norske Samlaget, 1981 Norway
Social life and customs Bjarne Hodne. Å leve med døden: folkelige forestillinger om døden og de døde. Oslo, Norway: Forlagt av H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nygaard), 1980 Norway
Social life and customs Nordmanns-Forbundet. The Norseman. Oslo, Norway: Nordmanns-Forbundet, 1960 Norway
Culture and Customs Margaret Hayford O'Leary. Culture and Customs of Norway. Greenwood Publishing, 2010 Norway
Social life and customs Linda Davis March; Margo Meyer. Norway. London: Kuperard, 2019 Norway
Social life and customs 19th century C B Burchardt. Norwegian life and literature; English accounts and views, especially in the 19th century. Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1974 Norway
Social life and customs H K Daniels. Home life in Norway. New York, Macmillan Co., 1912 Norway
Social life and customs 19th century Ann Urness Gesme. Between rocks and hard places: traditions, customs and conditions in Norway during the 1800s, emigration from Norway, the immigrant community in America. Cedar Rapids, IA: Gesme Enterprises, 1993 Norway
Customs and etiquette Elizabeth Su-Dale. Culture shock! Norway: [a guide to customs and etiquette]. Portland, Or.: Graphic Arts Center Publ., 2003 Norway
Social life and customs 1735-1865 Michael Drake. Population and society in Norway, 1735-1865. London, Cambridge U.P., 1969 Norway
Social life and customs Ole P Rørvik. Norway. Trondheim, [Norway]: Aune Forlag AS, 2009 Norway
Social life and customs Michael Tomkinson; Alf R Bjercke. Norway. Oxford: Tomkinson, 1991 Norway
Social life and customs to 1800 Erich Pontoppidan. The natural history of Norway : containing, a particular and accurate account of the temperature of the air, the different soils, waters, vegetables, metals, minerals, stones, beasts, birds, and fishes : together with the dispositions, customs, and manner of living of the inhabitants: interspersed with physiological notes from eminent writers, and transactions of academies : in two parts. London: A. Linde, 1755 Norway
Social life and customs Vincent Herschel Malmström; Ruth M Malmström. Life in Europe : Norway. Grand Rapids : Fideler Co., 1962 Norway
Social life and customs Nevada Berg. North wild kitchen: home cooking from the heart of Norway. Munich; New York: Prestel Verlag, 2018 Norway
Social life and customs Marianne Gullestad. Everyday life philosophers: modernity, morality and autobiography in Norway. Oslo; Boston: Scandinavian University Press, 1996 Norway
Social life and customs Ethlyn T Clough. Norwegian life; an account of past and contemporary conditions and progress in Norway and Sweden. Detroit, Mich., The Bay View Reading Club 1912 Norway
Social life and customs 800 to 1990 Floyd Mansfield Martinson. Growing up in Norway, 800 to 1990. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992 Norway

Additional Sources

  • Scandinavian Folklore
  • See the article Bunad for information on women and customs.
  • Norwegian periodicals are a particularly good source of information about social life and customs. For more information, see the "Periodicals" section.
  • The bygdebok discussed in the "Genealogy" section describes the local customs in the various parts of Norway. *Also see the Societies" Wiki article.
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