National Archives of Norway

Hello, Mike. Thanks for your patience in waiting for this response. I spent the week "on the road" for research, with only a laptop. Your query required opening seven separate screens side-by-side for comparison of specific details—one for your query, one of each of your two links, one for each of the three censuses being discussed, and one in which to compose a response.  A little 13" laptop screen, subdivided in seven parts, left nothing large enough to be read, much less correlated.

You write:

Citing records from the National Archives of Norway has been discussed on this forum several times. I am hoping to get some clarifications. Please refer to the following:

• https://www.evidenceexplained.com/index.php/node/1650 (1900 Census of Norway at Ancestry)
• https://www.evidenceexplained.com/index.php/node/2070 (Issues citing the Norwegian Census)

As I delve into census records covering 1865, 1875, 1891, and 1900-1920, I am trying to standardize and simplify as much as possible. I have come up with an attempted citation that follows the above approaches, but with some differences.

Standardization is commendable, to every extent possible. That said, absolute standardization across those several censuses is not possible because there are significant differences in format and content arrangement.

"Folketælling for Norge ... 1900" [Census of Norway], Nord-Trøndelag County, Schema [Schedule] 1, Beitstaden Herred [judicial district], Tællingkreds [enumeration district] no. 7, Personliste no. 21, unpaginated, entry for Anders Hansen household, lines 1-7; imaged, "1900 Census for 1727 Beitstad", database with images, National Archives of Norway, Digital Archives (https://media.digitalarkivet.no/view/37482 : downloaded 7 March 2022), images 577-8; citing Regional State Archives at Trondheim.

Layer 1 cites the actual document. I have used quotation marks around the title that I read directly from the document. I also have used an ellipsis to shorten the title by removing the day and month.

With regard to the ellipsis: you’ve saved 11 characters. Does that degree of space-saving justify the loss of the information that is conveyed in the full title?

Each record for the 1900-1920 censuses involves two pages. The first page identifies in order the census title, schedule, person list no., location district, enumeration district no. and the Gaards no. [farm], Bruk no. [parcel] and Bostedets (Gaardens, Pladsens) navn [residence (farm or cottage) name]. I have left the last three out of the citation as I consider them details to be listed in the main text, and are not needed to actually find the record. Doing so considerably shortens the citation.

If location details are not needed to locate a specific page or entry, then we would not need to include them in the citation. If they are needed to locate the correct page and entry, then the fact that those details are “listed in the main text,” does not eliminate the need for them to be included in the citation. For various reasons, users of citations often end up with citations totally separated from the text.

I have switched the order to put the person list no. after the enumeration district, because each enumeration district starts with person list no. 1. In EE's response to the thread "1900 Census of Norway at Ancestry", the recommendation was to retain the order shown on the document. The thread "Issues citing the Norwegian Census" shows switching the order.

The differences between the two citations exist because the two censuses have differences in format, content, and arrangement. As we assemble the individual pieces of data into a citation, we choose the arrangement that is logical for the specific document we are using.

Does my approach make sense?

Yes.

The second page is the list of people at this residence. In the case of this document, it is unpaginated. On many other census records there are page numbers, that I would add to the citation.

Your citation of “Personliste no. 21, unpaginated, entry for Anders Hansen household, lines 1-7” is self-explanatory.

Layer 2 also raises some questions. The National Archives of Norway website, https://www.arkivverket.no/en , is the main web page for the agency. Digitized documents are accessible from a separate web page, Digital Archive, https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/ , which can be reached from the main page. Many of the documents are indexed on the site. One of the issues I have is whether or not there are specific database/collection titles. Searches can be performed to find information in parish records, censuses, emigration records, probate records, etc. When an index is not available there are groups of records found under the heading Scanned Archives.

Ah, yes. We love these online images; but the variations in website architectures do tempt us to cuss. After we’ve reached a valuable document, the “reverse engineering” we have to do to create the citation sometimes presents web pages and sequences that differ radically from the process or path we actually used to arrive at the document. Typically, we have two basic choices:

• Cite the URL and then use the top-of-page path statement to back up to the web page under which that document is delivered. In this case, that would be National Archives of Norway, Skanna arkiver (https://media.digitalarkivet.no/view/37482/577)
• Cite the URL to the page that has the search query form and then identify the search terms and/or path that leads to the document. In this case, that would be National Archives of Norway, Arkivverket (https://www.arkivverket.no/en) [plus the search terms we used].

You also wrote:

a) The records being cited are from the Digital Archive website. With a name like that, should it be referenced as National Archives of Norway, Digital Archive (Website owner, website title) as I have done? In the response to "Issues citing the Norwegian Census", National Archives of Norway, Scanned Archives was used. It was my understanding that Scanned Archives was not a website title, but more of a database/collection.

The Skanna arkiver may be viewed as a standalone website although it is part of the Digitalarkivet. The credit line at the bottom of the Skanna page tells us “Digitalarkivet er en tjeneste fra Arkivverket”—i.e., The Digital Archive is a service from the National Archives.” The site does provide documents from a variety of other archives, but the site’s provider is identified in that credit line as the National Archives, no?

b) I am assuming that "1900 Census for 1727 Beitstad" is the name of the collection, but am not confident in that. While scrolling through the site, sometimes "1727" is used and other times it isn't. When it is unclear as to the name for a database/collection, would you use a generic term to describe the record type or just leave it out of the citation?

The standard national censuses from most countries tend to be cited generically under a series name: 1900 Census for ….  We may, as you’ve done above, cite an exact title from the document itself—in which case, we put that exact title in quotation marks to indicate that we are quoting exactly. If we are using a formally named collection/database from a website, we again quote that collection/database title exactly and put it in quotation marks.  The experience you describe in point b) is the reason why censuses do tend to be cited generically as “1900 Census for …..”

c) I am used to seeing a descriptor for the type of record (database, database with images, images) in many of EE's recommendations. Given that the database/collection title is uncertain, would it be best to eliminate the wording "database with images"?

When we use a formally named webpage from a website, one we typically cite in this format …

“Title of Article/Collection/Database/Whatever,” Website Creator, Title of Website (URL …

then a descriptor, following the first title, may or may not be needed to clarify what that title represents. If, say, we are citing an analytical or how-to article whose title might mislead someone into thinking it was an actual dataset, then we add a descriptor to clarify what it is we are citing. When citing databases that might include images or might be a text-based derivative compilation, then it’s wise to add a descriptor that says which kind of database we are using. If an article, collection, or database title is self-explanatory, there’s no need for the descriptor.

d) The URL points to the first image of the collection since there are two images that need to be referenced.

That’s not a problem. You go on to state the two image numbers. The situation is self-explanatory.