Genealogy Webinar for Members
The Gudbrandsdals Lag is excited to announce a new, comprehensive 12-class webinar series designed to guide members through every stage of Norwegian-American genealogical research.
The series begins with a four-class foundational module to ensure your research is built on a solid base. The initial classes cover essential skills like gathering and analyzing existing family materials and correctly recording all data—names, dates, places, and sources—before progressing to critical research fundamentals such as historical context, language, names, calendars, maps, and gazetteers. Crucially, two of these initial classes are dedicated to understanding record creators, jurisdictions, and online repositories like Digitalarkivet and FamilySearch. This deep dive into the history of the records helps researchers to understand why the records were created and where they can be found in the archive.
The program then moves into an eight-class study of the primary source materials themselves. The first three of these classes will focus on interpreting crucial records: an in-depth session on church records (including the structure of pre- and post-1814 parish registers), an exploration of census records, and a class dedicated to migration, emigration, and immigration records across Norway, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The final five classes provide instruction on specialized records, covering Bygdebøker (Farm Books), probate, land and tax, military records, and published U.S. sources such as books and newspapers. This entire 12-class curriculum will be offered as a free benefit exclusively to Gudbrandsdals Lag members.
Jeff Svare, AG®, Gudbrandsdalslaget Genealogist
Deputy, Chief Genealogical Officer, FamilySearch International
Jeff was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and was raised in Fargo, North Dakota in a household filled with immigrants and the children of immigrants. He moved to Salt Lake City, Utah in 1976, and currently resides in West Bountiful, Utah. He has a BA in History and is an Accredited Genealogist with ICAPGen in Norway research. He began working for FamilySearch in 1987, and has been involved in records acquisitions in Asia, the Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Europe, and Nordic countries. Jeff has taught classes at the FamilySearch Library, served as instructor and course coordinator four times for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, and twice presented at RootsTech. He has performed extensive research in the Nordic countries using printed, microfilmed, and online records as well as in-person research in national, regional, and local archives. Currently he is a Deputy Chief Genealogical Officer for FamilySearch.
