Find source

Go to Find source

Find Source is a search function which can search in the source information of the many thousands of archive sources The Digital Archives have published. From this, it is possible to see which types of archive material is available digitally. You can, for example, search for archive material with a connection to a specific place, a time or category. When you have found the archive sources you are interested in, you can navigate into them and explore the content.

Du may choose which, and how many search fields to fill out. It is not necessary to fill out the form from the top down. You can choose to fill out just the geographic search criteria. When you have filled out the search form, you must click the search button. If you change the search form, you must click on the search button again to update the results with the new criteria.

Please note that you cannot use Find Source to search for names of individuals, unless the name is actually a part of the source information. A search for Fridtjof Nansen will return results for archive sources such as Working committee for the Fridtjof Nansen Polar Expedition as well as blueprints for the LPG ship "Fridtjof Nansen" in the Kristiansand Shipyard. To find the person "Fridtjof Nansen" in censuses, church books and other sources, you should use the person search.

The free text search field is located top left, and is the most basic search. It can be used alone, or in combination with one of the other searches, but it is not necessary to use the free text field in all searches.

In the free text field, you can enter as many search words as you wish. This will generate results for all sources which contain at least one of the search words in their metadata. The more words that match a sources metadata, the higher up it will be featured in the result ranking

Examples of search terms are geographic areas (e.g "Fredrikstad" or "Løten") and source types (e.g "church book" or "probate").

Note that asterisk (*) can be used as a wildcard in the same way as the other search types in The Digital Archives. An example of using this for free text could be when searching for church records which could be listed as both "church books" or "church records". Enter church* to generate results for both. If you wish to use additional search terms and specify that these must be in the results, then you can use the (+) sign in front of the search term, e.g +Larvik. Similarly, you can exclude a word by placing a (-) sign in front of the word, e.g -Sandefjord.

With period search, you can search for archive material within a given time period. There are two search fields, From and To, where you may fill in a year for one or both fields. This will generate results for digitialized sources which cover all of, or parts of the time periods you specify.

• A search for From 1810 and To 1820 will generate results for all sources which cover the period from 1810 and no later than 1820.
• A search for From 1890 with an empty To-field, will generate results for all sources that cover the period from 1890 or later.
• A search for To 1915 with an empty From-field will generate results for all sources which cover the period 1915 or earlier.

There may be some digitalized sources which, for some reason, have not been registered with a year. If you use the period search, you will not see results for these sources

Under Form you can choose from several different digitalized source forms:

• All formats, the default option, will generate results for all sources, regardless of how they were digitalized and which format they exist in.
• Scanned will generate results only for sources which are scanned, but not searchable.
• Searchable will generate results for sources containing searchable, tabular data.
• Full text will generate results for sources that exists as an unstructured full text; Full text transcriptions for more info.
• Audio
• Video

The sources in The Digital Archives, have been assigned various category tags to make it easier to navigate them within a given context or theme. The tag search provides the possibility to search for sources registered with specific tags. Examples of tags could be Second world war, diaries and Copper works.

Tag suggestions will appear automatically as you type in the tag search field. You may choose one or more tags for your search.

Archives parts are stored at specific depository locations. This can be at the National Archives, a regional archive, municipal archive or a museum etc. Using depository location search, you can locate digitalized material which originates from a specific depository.

Suggestions for depository locations will appear automatically as you type in the depository field. You may choose one or more depository locations.

All archive entries belong to an archive, and the archive is usually named after the department, organisation or person who created the archive. This could be Aker magistrates, Elverum parish office, Administrative council eller Venstres Main Organisation.

Archive name suggestions will automatically appear as you type in the search field. You can choose one or more archives. Please note that archives of private individuals are usually named using their surname first, for example Faye, Andreas.

The sources in the digital archive are divided into source categories with subordinate source types. In the category search, you can choose one or more source types or entire source categories as search criteria.

Your choices will be highlighted in green. If you have selected an entire source category, all the child source types will be italicized to show that these have been automatically selected. To deselect a selected source type, or selected source category, click the source type or source category again so that the green color disappears.

All sources in the Digital Archive are registered with which municipalities they cover, as far as the sources are relevant for specific municipalities. We have chosen municipalities per. 1947, because this was the time when Norway had the largest number of municipalities, and provides the most detailed search possible. For sources covering areas abroad, appropriate names have been registered, for example Gothenburg and Buenos Aires.

The municipalities are located in a hierarchy of county and district as parent levels. For foreign countries, the country is the parent level. You can select one or more municipalities by clicking on them so that they are highlighted in green. You can also select all municipalities in an county or in a part of the country. In this case, the county or part of the country is marked with green, while all the underlying municipalities are italicized to indicate that there were automatically selected. To deselect a selected municipality, selected county, or selected country section, click the green selections to make them disappear.

Your chosen search criteria appear in red frame with a cross in front. By clicking the cross, you remove the search criterium.

You can also start again by simply resetting the search. The reset button is located next to the search button.