Icelandic Roots Top Ten Ways to Improve Your Family Genealogy Research

Here are ten suggestions on how to do genealogical research. Even experienced genealogists might find these tips worthwhile. Plus, we've added a bonus tip!

1. How to Begin: Start with yourself. Then go back in time to your parents, grandparents, etc. Be sure to visit with your older relatives before they're all gone. Visit with distant cousins and hear the stories they know. Find people in your family who may have kept photos, diaries, letters, and more. Even distant relatives can be a goldmine of information. Using the Icelandic Roots Database has many advantages as much of the work is at your fingertips with the decades of research our volunteer genealogists have done throughout their lifetimes.

There are many different genealogy software programs that you can purchase for a reasonable fee to enter your own family history information such as Family Tree Maker, Family Tree Builder, RootsMagic, Legacy, Family Historian, and many more. The file is stored on your computer, and you do not need to put it online. There are pros and cons to putting your family tree online. Carefully consider them before putting your tree in an open online source. The Icelandic Roots Database has copyright and terms of use as do most sources of information, so be mindful of these policies before entering any of the data into your personal files.

2. Online Iceland Records: Many Icelandic records are online. Icelandic parish registers, census records, court records, land records, and such are available without cost online through http://skjalaskrar.skjalasafn.is/: only a few parish registers from ca.1750, the first census in 1703 (then the next online is 1816). Icelandic Roots does have an index of the 1801 census and other census records that are not online.

Also, excellent resources are https://timarit.is/ and https://baekur.is or https://handrit.is/en/. Timarit is full of information from about 1800 to the present; baekur.is has images of many very old manuscripts. Nearly all are in Icelandic. If you decide to take a quick look at any of these online resources, you will very quickly see that around 1703 is as "early as it gets" for most sources.

3. Sources of Information: Always record the source of the information and add the date. For books, write the book’s name, author, publisher, year of publication, ISBN or ISSN (if it has one), and where you found it. For Icelandic Roots information, be aware of the copyright and terms of use policies. The link is on the bottom of the IR Database homepage and also found on the regular www.IcelandicRoots.com website. Consider looking at the IR Database Timeline of Historical Events. Find out what was happening during the lives of your ancestors. Timelines give much more information about their lives and the happenings of the time.

4. Places: Be precise with the place names. Include the ancestral farm if known, the parish (sókn), county (hreppur), state or province (sýsla), and country. Boundaries and place names change constantly. Verify place names with the data in the Icelandic Roots Database. If you have questions, direct them to our Places Team in support (at) IcelandicRoots.com. We use historical atlases pertaining to the area and have spent a lot of time researching places. Make sure to use the “Map” feature in the database to find your ancestral farms. Icelandic Roots is the only genealogical service using this special way of mapping and documenting locations.

5. Backups and Photocopies: Make photocopies or keep backups of all letters and e-mail messages you send and establish a filing system. Make frequent backups of your computer files. Store backups and photocopies at another location. The Icelandic Roots Database is backed up twice a day at different locations. Our genealogy team adds about 2,500 new people per month to the database and we add photos, death dates, cemetery information, obituaries, biographies, or other updates to about 8,000 personal pages per month so it is very important that we do frequent backups.

6. Books and Newspapers: Write to local libraries and historical societies in your areas of interest to see if they have a local history book. Purchase local history books at used booksellers or find them in museums, libraries, and even garage sales. We use abebooks.com to find many Icelandic-related books. Indexes to books usually do not cover every person mentioned in the book. Skim through the local histories to find more obscure mentions of people, places, and events that took place during your ancestor’s lifetime. Search local newspapers. Here is a webinar you can watch on Finding Your Family in Newspapers.

7. Old Family Stories: Remember that information you learn from family lore or in written family histories is often incorrect or a stretch of the truth. Wrong information often is repeated and spread. Claiming relationships over 20+ generations cannot be proven reliably, and records kept by humans are prone to errors with each generation. Family traditions of close connections to famous people usually have a stretch of the imagination. As in my family, Amma said, “We come from a long line of bishops and pastors.” Well … yes but not until my 5th Lang Afi could I find them – born in 1750.

8. Connections to Ancient Ancestors: The old Icelandic sagas and many ancient family trees are entertaining but impossible to prove even with careful guessing. Although the database does include (unproven) information from the time of Iceland's settlement for your enjoyment to see just how you are related to the old Kings and Queens of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, England, and Ireland as well as to all the characters in the Icelandic Sagas.

Most Icelanders do not have Family Crests. This was very rare in medieval Iceland. Nobility in Iceland was abolished in 1660 and no one in Iceland today has a permitted claim to a family coat of arms. You can find the few ancestors with a coat of arms in the IR Database. [Items of Interest, All Media, then search for the coat of arms.]

9. Double Check all Spelling and Dates: The earlier the time period in which you're researching, the less consistent our ancestors were about the spelling of their surnames or their correct birth dates. Also, some of them were illiterate and couldn't tell a record keeper how their names should be spelled. Use genealogical standards for dates: 02 FEB 1800 = Day, Month, Year. A woman born in 1820 was not a mother to a baby born in 1800. Do not create duplicates in your files.

Watch for nicknames and alias names. Many people who emigrated took on new names and changed from the patronymic naming system. Icelandic Roots continues to find Icelandic people who went by several different names than their birth name in Iceland. Check out our AKA report in the database to see hundreds of examples.

10. Conflicting Information: What if the birth date on a gravestone or other official record in North America is different from the Icelandic Roots' birth date? You can contact our genealogy team and we can research the parish record which will have the information. You can then write the conflicting information in a note with their record. Analyze the evidence. Does the paperwork show that they were a year older, or their birth location was different? Most people in Iceland who emigrated moved around a lot during their time in Iceland to different farms.

Only the information in the official document written at the time will be the most accurate. Certainly, they could have errors, but they are less likely than a document written many years later. Try to find multiple sources of your information - especially when you find conflicts in the evidence. Parish records are often very difficult to read and can take years of practice as well as knowledge of Danish and Icelandic to decipher them.

Most of all ... have fun and enjoy the process. Discover all the wonderful features and opportunities in the Icelandic Roots Treasure Chest - our Genealogy Database.

Bonus Tip:

Whether you are looking for a person in the database or in other types of media, nicknames can sometimes throw you off, and there are many headstones with nicknames.

You might think that you're looking for a male, but the name you have is actually female.

One of the headstones I was researching had a first name of Stebba. With my limited knowledge of Icelandic, I knew that Stebba was short for Stefania and Stebba ended with the letter A so I knew I was looking for a female. If the person was male, the name would have been Stebbi, short for Stefan.

Inga can be short for Ingibjorg, and Bjorg can be short for Ingibjorg.

Ingibjorg is female, and Ingiberg is male.

Another example of a headstone was the name Aslaug Einarson. She had been born in Iceland and was in the database as Aslaug Einarsdóttir.

And you also need to experiment with spelling variations...Oscar-Oskar, Erikur-Eirikur, Anna-Anne, Jón-John, Eyolfson-Eyjolfson

Blair Swanson

Icelandic Roots Volunteer