The first «Bøgda vår» was published in 1979 and it has been published every year since. It has evolved into a booklet with more than 100 pages with genealogy, local traditions, old pictures and much more. It is published by Oppdal Historielag. They have made an index of the published material.

I have published there twice; in 2018 an article about Ane Soneson who emigrated from Oppdal to the US and eventually settled in Duluth, Minnesota. She was a cousin of my grandfather and her life story was a fairytale from rags to riches. And 60 years after she died, people still remember her and her generosity.

This year I have written about my grandfather and his first years working outside of his homearea Oppdal. In both articles I have relied heavily on letters that my family have kept. My grandfather went to military school at sargent level (Underoffiserskolen) in Trondheim and later he worked at an iron ore plant outside of Mo i Rana, that is at Storforshei.

Norway have 435 municipalities, but more than 500 historical societies. They are organized in a society Landslaget for Lokalhistorie. The historical societies take care of our cultural heritage and some societies own property, while others publish journals with local history.

These yearbooks, booklets and journals are of great value to the genealogists. Many of them have been scanned by the National Library and even though people outside of Norway can’t read them online, they can see what is available at the online library. I would also recommend going to the local libraries (or ask somebody to do it for you) because you can find even more there and some things that are not scanned.

If you want to read about Farm Books (Bygdebøker) look at this post or about errors in them, read here.