4 Smart Strategies for Finding Marriage Records

Happy Valentine’s Day 2020! Let’s talk about Norwegian and Swedish marriage records today since it’s a very special holiday. Marriage records are a vital record that often gets overlooked because it can be tricky to find at times. Therefore, I’m going to give you some tips that I’ve learned about finding marriage records.

Norwegian Marriage Records

First, you should know the Norwegian words for marriage and engagement. Norwegians have many words that mean the same thing just like any language. However, the most common forms are these on marriage records. Vielse means wedding or marriage, viet means married, trolovelse means engagement, and trolovet means engagement.

Historically, Norwegians married a year or two before the first child was born. This is the easiest place to start. I learned that I had to find the oldest child before I could look for marriage records. I did that by finding census records. Then I would find the oldest child’s birth record to make sure this was the oldest child of that couple.

Then I would look to see where the family lived when the oldest child was born. That’s my starting place for marriage records. People typically didn’t move very much when they were expecting their first child. Next, I would go onto Norway’s Digital Archives and look at original marriage records starting two years before the child’s birth.

What to do if it doesn’t work?

If that doesn’t work, then I expand those years to five or ten years before the child was born. If that still doesn’t work, I look at one or two years after the child was born. Maybe they got married after the birth?

If I still can’t find their marriage record, then I look at the parents birthplaces. They might have married first, then moved to another area, and then had their first child. It was Norwegian custom to marry in the bride’s Parish, so if the couple wanted to follow tradition, then I would check there first. However, I usually check both places because people married in different places for good reasons. For example, my Norwegian family usually married in the groom’s Parish. I don’t know the reason, but I bet it was a good one to them.

Strategies for Oslo, Norway

If your ancestors moved to Oslo, Norway, then you search a little differently. Oslo is a big city and they broke up the city into many clerical districts. Therefore, there’s a lot of church books to search through if you don’t know the district. Many people just put Oslo on the census records and didn’t put their district in Oslo on that record. Therefore, worst case scenario, you have to search every district until you find that marriage record. It also means searching page by page until you find your ancestors. It’s still doable, but it’s probably not what you expected.

If you still can’t find their marriage record in Oslo, then try searching in the surrounding parishes. Many people put Oslo as their residence because it was the big city at the time. It was just easier to write that then to write their farm or village residence.

Swedish Marriage Records

Swedish marriage records have many of the same strategies as Norwegian records. I still start the search using the oldest child’s birth year and birthplace. I still use the parents birthplaces and I widen that search when necessary. However, Swedish marriage records have an added bonus that Norway and Denmark don’t have.

Sweden has Household Examination records that actually record the marriage date and place on it. Therefore, the most important record to find is this examination record. Then from there I find the couple’s marriage record in the church books. The examination record is Sweden’s census record. It has birth, marriage, and death information on it. It’s a fantastic record! I go into more detail on my other blog posts on household examination records that I will link to here and here. It’s worth the effort to find this record! You can find these records at the Swedish National Archives for free.

Those are my strategies for finding your ancestor’s marriage records. I love this part of genealogy! The searching is what makes my day! If you are still struggling with finding the records, then please contact me and I would love to help.

Remember, asking a genealogy coach can benefit you greatly because we’ve been there before. We know how to research. We have connections if your particular problem is not in our skill set. We’ve got options for YOU! Just try it.

In the meantime…

Good luck and happy hunting.

Tiffany

P.S. If you want to know what my favorite genealogy websites are, then sign up for my free download and you can have it for yourself!

P.P.S. If you want to know more about Danish marriage records, then click here for my blog post.