Plenty of resources can help you trace ancestors’ journeys.
Norway’s emigration records are skimpy prior to 1867, when the police began keeping these files, which are mostly available on FHL microfilm. Most Norwegian emigrants in the peak years of “America fever” left from the ports of Oslo (Kristiana), Bergen, Trondheim, and Stavanger. Passenger lists for major Norwegian ports, as well as many other emigration-related records, such as passports, can be searched using the National Archives of Norway’s Digitalarkivet site, available in English. To see all the various emigration resources, click on “Find source” and then choose the “Emigration records” dropdown and click “Search.” You’ll find lists from each “politidistrikt” (police district), by years.
You’ll also find these searchable (no images) databases for specific ports:
- Emigrants from Bergen, 1874 to 1930
- Emigrants from Larvik, 1887 to 1930
- Emigrants from Sandefjord, 1904 to 1921
- Emigrants from Fredrikstad, 1883 to 1890
- Emigrants from Arendal, 1903 to 1930
- Emigrants from Kristiansund, 1882 to 1930
- Emigrants from Stavanger, 1903 to 1928
- Emigrants from Kristiansand, 1873 to 1930
- Emigrants from Trondheim, 1867 to 1930
- Emigrants from Kristiania, 1867 to 1927, additions
- Emigrants from Oslo, 1867 to 1930
- Emigrants from Kristiania, 1871 to 1930, edited version
- Emigrants from Tinn, 1837 to 1907
You can search these emigration registers by any combination of these filters:
- Given name
- Last name
- Gender
- Residence
- Birth place
- Date of birth
- Year of birth
- Age
- Position
- Family position
- Date of emigration (year-month-date)
- Destination
- Date of arrival
- Line
- Ship
- Agent
- Passport
- New occupation
- Reason for emigration
- Port of departure
- Registration date
- Date of contract
- Herred (Municipality)
- Bailiff
- Parish
Note that common surnames may be abbreviated, so searching for “Olson” might get no results if it’s written as “Ols.”; you can use an asterisk to search for all variations beginning with what you type (“Ols*”). If you search using a field with no data in an ancestor’s entry, your search will also come up empty. Try various fields and search with only one or two filters unless you get too many results. Results, which are transcriptions only, will include some or all of these same fields.
The Norway Heritage site is another handy resource for passenger lists and emigrant ships.