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Genealogy Society of Norway (Slekt og Data)'s Cemeteries in Norway is based on volunteer work and has been built up through many years of community effort. The goal is to document important cultural heritage and help you find the birth and death dates of your ancestors and the place where they are buried.

Thanks to the voluntary commitment, which takes place across Norway, today approximately 3,400 cemeteries, 3.4 million gravestones, and 3 million photographs can be found in the database as of now.

Difficult to trace

In 1825, emigration from Norway to America began. It started small with 50 people on board the ship Restauration from Stavanger. Many Norwegians followed in their footsteps, and by 1920, it is estimated that around 800,000 Norwegians emigrated to America.

It is often difficult to find the Norwegians after they settled in America. Some lived in what could be called Norwegian communities, while others tried their luck in somewhat more unconventional areas and are thus a bit harder to find.

The biggest challenge when searching in America is how the Norwegian names were written. Some kept their names from Norway or Americanized their names, while others chose something entirely new.

We need your help

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of emigration, Genealogy Society of Norway has started a project to locate where our old countrymen were buried and get them registered in Cemeteries in Norway. We are especially focused on the USA and Canada, but graves in other countries are also being registered.

The work has begun, but we need your help. This involves both registering people and preferably also with a picture if you have one.

Before a person can be registered in a cemetery, the cemetery must be added to our system. If you see that a cemetery is missing, you can send us an email at [email protected] so that we can add it. After that, you can register the person(s) yourself. You can do the registration on this page. For now, you can only register graves/persons on our Norwegian websites. A tip is to use Google Translate, so that the website is translated into the desired language.

About the registration

Entering names on the grave card

We have created some guidelines for entering names, as people often may have different names or spellings of their name compared to what they used when they lived in Norway.

• Name Abroad: Andrew Johanson
• Name in Norway: Anders Johannessen

Name entered on the grave card as follows:

• First Name: Andrew (Anders)
• Last Name: Johanson (Johannessen)

Place names are written as place/city and municipality.

Source reference

It is desirable to include references to sources where the person is mentioned in Norway. This can be church records, censuses, etc.

Pictures of cemeteries

If you have overview pictures of cemeteries abroad, we are also interested in this. These can be sent to [email protected]

Top Image: From the Norwegian America Line terminal at Vippetangen in Oslo, probably in the 1920s. Photo: Narve Skarpmoen / National Library. The second image shows the gravestone of Oluf Gjerset, who emigrated to America and became a politician. Screenshot: Genealogy Society of Norway.