GuidedResearch:Why Can't I Find the Record - Norway Marriages

This page will give you additional guidance and resources to find marriage information for your ancestor. Use this page after first completing the marriage section of the Norway Guided Research page.

Additional Databases and Online Resources

 * 1600s-1800s: Norway Marriages at Ancestry ($)
 * 1600s-1900s: Norway Parish Registers and Censuses at the Norway Digital Archives
 * 1600s-1900s: Norway Parish Registers (Northern Norway) at the Norwegian Historical Data Centre

Additional Records with Marriage Information
Substitute records may contain information about more than one event and are used when records for an event are not available. Records that are used to substitute for marriage events may not have been created at the time of the marriage. The accuracy of the record is contingent upon when the information was recorded. Search for information in multiple substitute records to confirm the accuracy of these records.

Tips for finding marriages
Success with finding marriage records in online databases depends on a few key points:
 * Your ancestor's name may misspelled. Try the following search tactics:
 * Try searching for the husband instead of the wife, or vice versa.
 * Try different spelling variations of the first and last name of your ancestor (e.g. Christian, Kristian).
 * Try a given name search (leave out the last names).
 * The use of patronymics was largely discontinued after the mid 1800s, changing the way people held surnames. See this article for more information.
 * Women began adopting their husband's surname in documents in the late 1800s/early 1900s.


 * Expand the date range of the search.
 * Try searching with the county name or in surrounding parishes.

Known Record Gaps
Records Start Beginning about 1500, usually much later, churches in Norway required their clergy to keep marriage records. Early records may have been lost or damaged.

Records Destroyed Any known record loss will be mentioned on the parish page. Locate your parish by navigating to the parish page starting here.