The University of North Dakota Chester Fritz Library now plans
to buy 33 more "bygdeboker" volumes, thanks to help from Nodak Mutual
Foundation of Fargo. The bygdeboker books record Norway's historical farming
tradition, and family population and are tools for finding information about
ancestors in Norway. The University of North Dakota already has one of the
largest bygdebok collections outside Norway, and the new addition will make the
collection even more valuable to genealogists and historians.
Organized in 1997 to preserve and develop the Nordic Studies
Program at UND, the Nordic Initiative established the Norwegian-American Farm
Family History Project to support the large collection of bygdeboker used by an
increasing number of people across the nation every year. Bruce Gjovig, chair of
the Nordic Initiative said, "UND's bygdebok collection is one of the
largest and most comprehensive collections outside of Norway, and is a strong
draw for many Norwegian-American families wishing to trace their heritage and
ancestry." The collection is housed in the UND Chester Fritz Library's
Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections.
The current Bygdebok Collection contains over 950 books that
allow family history researchers to trace their families back to the early 1600s
in more than 500 Norwegian farms. The bygdebok collection is open to the public
and a free guide is available upon request by phone (701) 777-4625 or through
the Special Collections Web site at www.und.nodak.edu/dept/library/Collections/Famhist/bygdebok.html.
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