Genealogy

 

 

 

Hi, I'm Hálfdan Helgason,

I run the website The Emigration from Iceland to North America and have been doing so for many years. The main purpose of the site is to help people of Icelandic origin search their roots in Iceland, their ancestors and living relatives. The aim is to build up databases with names of Icelandic settlers and their descendants in North America.

A new feature of this website is my Weekly Newsletter, the first issue of which you can see here: http://www.halfdan.is/news/ . Please take a look - and Join the list!

Best regards,
Hálfdan

Hálfdan Helgason - Reykjavík - Iceland
Email: halfdanh@simnet.is
The Emigration from Iceland to North America
http://www.simnet.is/halfdanh/vestur.htm
The Icelandic GenWeb (in Icelandic)
http://www.itn.is/~halfdan/aett/aettvef.htm

 

For those of you interested in genealogy, the following announcement was seen on Eastman's Online Genealogical Newsletter, so word is getting out about Iceland's project.

 

All Icelandic Genealogy Information Now Online

Online "instant genealogy" has arrived, at least for the citizens of one island nation. Any resident citizen of Iceland can go online, type in a tiny bit of information, and then see a complete list of ancestors for the past 400-plus years. The database reportedly contains records of 99% of the residents who lived within the past 400+ years.

An online database known as "Íslendingabók" was opened to the public this week. This is a nearly complete database of all available Icelandic genealogy information. That's right: nearly all known genealogy information for the island of Iceland -- and that's a lot of information! Iceland has genealogy records to be envied by residents of other countries. The new Web site includes information about every living Icelander and his or her ancestors, going all the way back to the original settlement of Iceland in the 9th century or as far as records exist. (Privacy of information for living individuals does not seem to be an issue in Iceland.) Almost any Icelander can go online and look up his/her family tree that is fairly complete back to 1650 or so, often with some branches extending back for more than 30 generations.

This project started 15 years ago and has now finally reached the point where it can be made accessible to the public. Use of the database is free of charge. You can see it at Islendingabok. Of course, there are two tiny problems anyone in other countries who is researching Icelandic ancestry:

1. The entire site is in Icelandic.
2. Access to the database requires an Icelandic ID number. This ID number may be obtained by contacting Friđrik Skúlason by email.

I suppose there is a good chance that people researching Icelandic ancestors are fluent in the language. However, the Icelandic ID number may be a stumbling block for descendants living elsewhere. The creators of the site say that their first priority was to get the site online and available for those who will use it the most: Icelanders living on the island. Access for descendants of Icelandic emigrants will be enabled soon, and an English interface will be provided later.
Small nation or not, it still boggles my mind that a free online database has a complete genealogy database for every living resident of an entire country for the past four and a half centuries, with many records going back 700 years or more!

To discuss this story further, please visit the newsletter Discussion Board and click on "Discussion Board."

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