Norway Matrikkel

A Matrikkel is a public record, index to Land areas or real estate (Grunneiendommer) in Norway. In rural Norway it is a record or a list of farm properties. The farms are usually listed in topographic order and include a farm number (gårdsnummer), and  Division number (bruksnummer). These indexes include


 * The name of the farm and the land that belonged to each farm, name of owner or farmer, the value of the property
 * A Mortgage bond (Panteobligasjon), and increase in value of the property
 * A set value in inheritance cases
 * A set public tax, based on the value of the property

In Norway the properties are divided by communities (kommunevis) with a nunber of farms and subfarms in each "kommune". Each farm has a farm number (Gårdsnummer [gnr.]); and each subfarm (bruk [bnr.]) a subfarm number. The farm numbers are unique within each "kommune" while subfarm numbers (bruksnumrene) starts over again for each farm. A Matrikkel can also include a lease number (festenummer [fnr.]) used in sub communities and a section number (seksjonsnummer) (snr.).

To make sure there is only one number for each property in all of Norway, a community number (kommunenummer) is listed infront of the matrikkelnumber. For Example: Farm number 200 subfarm number 243, section number 14 in Grimstad community in community number 0904.

When new land was given a marikkel number it is called matrukulering, and this will be recorded in the land record book (grunnboksbladet) by the land surveyers for the land courts.

Some land records/property records (Jordebøker) for Norway were in existence from as early as the 1100s. More properties were listed from the 1400-1500s, especially 1590 to about 1660 but they do not include all the privately own propery. Rules on how these records should be kept varied from time to time.

Below you will see an index of some of the terms used in the 1723 matrikkel and which parishes was included in each jurisdiction. As the population grew these jurisdictions changed. As a result a parish could be in a different jurisdiction in a later matrikkel.

Following are links to matrikkels:


 * Tax Matrikkel 1647 for Troms and Finnmark (Digital Archives)
 * Matrikkels for Nordland   (Digital Archives)
 * Matrikkels for Nord-Trøndelag (Digital Archives)
 * Matrikkels for Sør-Trøndelag 1625-1762 (Digital Archives)
 * Matrikkels for Møre og Romsdal  (Digital Archvies)
 * Matrikkels for Sogn og Fjordane (Digital Archives)
 * Matrikkels for Hordaland 1647-1906 (Digital Archives)
 * Tax Matrikkel for Rogaland 1647 (Digital Archives) Matrikkels for Vest-Agder (Digital Archvies)
 * Tax Matrikkel for Aust-Agder (Digital Archives)
 * Matrikel and jodebøker for Telemark (Digital Archives)
 * Tax Matrikkel for Vestfold (Digital Archvies)
 * Tax Matrikkel for Buskerud(Digital Archives)
 * Matrikler and jordebøker for Oppland County 1615-1657) (Digital Archives)
 * Jordebok for Hedmark og Østerdalen 1625 (Available at Digital Archives)
 * Matrikkel (jordebok) for Fredrikstad city 1661 (Available at Digital Archives)
 * Matrikkelutkastet 1723 (Available on microfilm at the Family History Library)
 * Matrikkelarbeidet 1723 (Available in a searchable database at Digital Archives)
 * Matrikkelen 1838 (Available in a searchable database at Digital Archives)