Questions about user accounts, logging in and discussion forums

No. It is not necessary to register. If you already have an account on The Digital Archives, you can use it to login to the discussion forums, and you can create PDF collections of scanned material that you wish to copy. Please see the user-guide PDF-collections of scanned pages. Some users may be granted access to material which is ordinarily restricted, for example the "Old Land Register". These users must register.

It is completely free of charge to register an account in The Digital Archives, but we do ask that you write your first name and last name when you register. For those who participate in the discussion forum, this name will be visible to search engines such as Google.

You need a valid email address to register. You may find information on how to register in our help pages.

If the link in the activation e-mail is not blue and "clickable", you can copy the link. Select the text from "http" and to the end of the last character, even if this goes over several lines. Copy the selected text using (right-click -> copy), and open your web browser (this can be Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome etc). Click on the address field (the text box at the top of the page where you usually find the internet addresses of the pages you are visiting). Now you can paste link using (right-click -> paste). Now press enter on the keyboard. In a few seconds, you should see a page which confirms your account is registered, and that you may now log in. If this does not work, please forward the activation email to us (digitalarkivet@arkivverket.no), so we may activate the account on your behalf.

There can be a number of reasons you encounter an error message when trying to activate your account. Sometimes this is due to the account already being activated. You can therefore simply try logging in. Other times, it can be due to problems with the web browser you are using. If you have Internet Explorer as your standard web brower, try opening the activation link in another web browser such as Firefox or Chrome. To do this, you must copy the link from the activation e-mail. Error messages can also occur when a long time has passed between registration and an attempt to activate the account. In this case, you will need to request a new activation link.

If nothing of this helps, please forward the activation email to us (digitalarkivet@arkivverket.no), so we may activate the account on your behalf.

You must first be logged in to be able to participate in the discussion forum. Navigate to the forum in which you wish to ask your question.

Click Start new topic and write a title which makes it easy to understand what you are enquiring about; for example the name of a person, place and date. It is then easy for others to understand exactly what you are asking. Unspecific titles such as Looking for my granny are better replaced with something like Searching for Anne Hansdatter, Vågå, ca. 1890. Place your question in the big text box and click "Start new topic"

If you wish to answer a post, navigate to the topic and click Reply to topic. Write your response, and click the button "Reply". It can take a few seconds before the answer is visible.

When you are unable to answer a post, it could be due to you not being logged in. It can also be that you are viewing the archived forum. The archives forum is a collection of all dicussions from the the old discussion forum prior to 2011. In this archive-forum, it is not possible to answer. Please see FAQ - "Eg vil svare i Arkiv-forumet - innlegg frå tidlegare debattfora" for a solution to this problem

The Archived Forum is a collection of all discussions from the previous discussion forum we had prior to 2011. It is not possible to answer, but this does not mean you cannot continue a discussion. If you find a thread in the archived forum, you can copy the title and discussion number (the number between square brackets]. Use the old title to create a new discussion in The user discussion forum. In the first post, you can paste in the link to the archived thread. This makes it easy for users to find the old discussion and brief themselves on the details.

When you create a new topic, you must select "Notify me about answers". You can also select Follow this for topics that you yourself, or others have created. You can choose to be notified by e-mail everytime something new happens, or a daily/weekly summary of activity.

You can also choose to follow everything that happens in an entire forum, for example the "User's own forum"; however this will generate a lot of emails. It is advisable to only follow individual topics or forums where there is a low level of activity.

1. Login to The Digital Archives with the same email and password you use in the discussion forums. When this login has succeeded, you can return to the discussion forum and login in the regular way.

2. Register a user account on The Digital Archives with the same email address and password you have used in the discussion forums. When you have registered, you must activate this account. When the registration and activation is successful, you can return to the discussion forums and login in the regular way.

Please Note: Try option 1 first. If you receive the error message "Wrong username or password", this is a sign that your user account is not synchronised with The Digital Archives, and you must therefore attempt option 2)

You must click the box "I am not a robot", when you register a user account. You may then be asked a question about a series of pictures presented to you. This may seem a little strange, but it is a neseccary security measure to prevent automated software, so called "Bots" from registering user accounts. Read more about this type of check here: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA.

Click on the pictures that match the question; for example all the pictures of a shop front, and then click "Confirm". You can also request a new series of pictures if you wish.