PAPER
PRESENTED AT THE XVth CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR
HISTORY AND COMPUTING
University
of Tromsø 8th of August 2003
Content:
Settlement
structure in rural Norway
Period
covered and source material used for such bygdebok projects
The
method traditionally used when working on a «busetnadssoge»-project
Basic
functionality of BSS, overview..
Implementation
of the system and database
Norway has
an old but still flourishing genre of farm- and genealogical histories. In
fact, the genre celebrates its 100th anniversary this year – the
first book was published in 1903.[1]
The term used in Norwegian is «bygdebok» («-bøker» in pl.). A «bygd» is a small rural community, rarely larger than a
parish. A complete bygdebok normally consist of two
main parts, often with several volumes each. One part is a general history of
the bygd, organized by themes or periods.
The second,
upon whom this paper will concentrate, describe the history of all farms and
other dwellings in a «bygd», combined with
genealogical data of past and present residents. The information is usually
presented in a narrative form with dwellings ordered geographically, residents
arranged in «families» or other groups and listed below dwellings they belonged
to. Further, each individual has cross-references to other places where he or
she has stayed, place of birth etc. Because of this it is possible to trace
individuals as they moved from place to place, map the pedigree of a selected
person and so on. A large number of such books are still published each year in
Norway. The area of a project is usually a parish, and the result is usually
several large volumes.
Traditionally,
manipulation and analysis of the huge amounts of historical data needed as
background material are based on more or less manual, highly time consuming
methods. In recent years, though, there have been some improvements, especially
through faster and cheaper computers available. But each historian has still to
rely heavily on his or her own skills and ingenuity in developing the
appropriate tools.
It should
be noted that historians working in this genre are forced to use somewhat
different methods in their analysis, compared to both historical demographers
and traditional genealogists. The demographers' approach yields valid results
on the statistical level, but not necessarily about individuals in the material
that historians and genealogists have to survey. On the other hand,
genealogists often map specific families, leaving out the considerable number of
individuals with no links to any known family, or no
descendants. Clearly, historians in the «farm and genealogy» field have a point
of view somewhere between the two others, and must in addition cover the
general history of the farms and other dwellings in the researched area.
It should
also be noted that there are not two such projects that are identical; they
vary considerably as far as the settlement structure, size of population,
amount and quality of source material etc. of the investigated areas (parishes)
are concerned. Also the willingness of the project organizers (usually the
municipality) to fund accurate collection, treatment and analysis of sources
and the qualifications of the researcher (often a local historian without
formal training in history) can vary to a great deal. The results are books of
very variable quality. However, good books in this genre can generate
considerable income and contribute to the funding of the project. Such projects
– at least 114 are ongoing in 2002 – were funded with a minimum of NOK 21,5 mill. (EURO 2,7 mill.) in Norway this year.
Despite
several commercial software packages available, serving both demographers
(statistical analysis tools) and genealogists (family record programs), none of
them quite fulfils the needs of historians in the field. This is primarily due
to their lack of capacity to handle farms and other dwellings, and the fact
that they rarely can produce references between persons and places.
The purpose
of this project is to develop a useful tool for historians working in this
field, a tool to assist researchers in all stages of work, including final
presentation of the achieved result as a book manuscript. The title of the
system is «Busetnadssoge» («Settlement history»),
abbreviated BSS, or BSS-application (under Windows). This application will be
able to handle all such projects, regardless of settlement structure, sources
etc. in the area investigated; the only limit is population size. BSS is now
tested in a bygdebok project of Volda,
with a present population of 8.500 (4.556 in 1900, 3.939 in 1801).
Due to topographical and climatic
reasons the area of arable land of Norway is very limited.[2]
The agrarian production up to the twentieth century was heavily dependent upon
extensive use of natural resources in addition to the arable land, and this
fact has constituted a settlement structure of the country rather different
from the rest of Europe: In Norway single farms or farms with a few clearly
distinguishable holdings are the normal pattern. Villages as in the rest of
Europe are not found at all in Norway.
Agrarian settlement
of this type have usually been dated back to about 0 A.D. in Norway. It
grew slowly or more rapidly in periods to app. 1300 A.D. Farms occurred in
several ways:
·
New,
small farms were cleared in earlier uncultivated areas.
·
New,
small farms cleared in central areas, but on poorer soil between older farms.
·
Older
farms grew during the centuries and were divided into several one-family
holdings.
The large number of deserted farms
of the late middle Ages was mostly re-settled during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries settlement
grew mainly in two ways:
·
Older
farms were divided into holdings.
·
New
cottar’s places were established either on cultivated land or in the
outfields, in order to house a growing group of day workers and their families.
A very
significant side of Norway’s rural settlement structure in the farm name
system, which developed into the family name system of Norway in the first
part of the twentieth century. About 70 % of the family names used in Norway
today are farm names.
All farms
got their names while settled for the first time, and the main rule is that the
farm carries the same name today as it did 700–2000 years ago (of course with
significant but traceable changes due to the general change of language from
Old Norse to modern Norwegian, heavy Danish influence etc.). Usually it is
simple to identify a named farm (a farm with a specific identifiable
name) in rural Norway today, either as a single farm or a few holdings of which
some originally may have been cottar’s places settled in the eighteenth or
nineteenth century.[3]
The names
of the holdings under a named farm were also almost as stable, even if changes
could occur e.g. after periods when a holding had been deserted. But a more serous problem is that the name of the holding usually
wasn’t used in the different government registers –almost always only the name
of the main (named) farm.
For the
ordinary holdings this isn’t too difficult because one usually knows the land
tax of the holding and the name of the owner/peasant through tax lists,
censuses etc. But when handling the growing number of cottars’ places through
the eighteenth and nineteenth century this might be a growing problem, at least
in some parts of Norway where the number of cottar’s places was large.
The basic
administrative units of rural Norway up to 1837 were the parish and the tinglag or skipreide (lowest judicial
unit). These units often, but not always, covered the same area. However,
changing parish and/or tinglag borders rather often
creates trouble in the collection of sources for bygdebok
projects.
In the
twentieth century the settlement structure in most rural areas has changed
dramatically; the number of holding based upon agriculture has been reduced
severely, and a number of modern houses of suburban types have been built by
people employed in other kinds of production and services. Smaller and larger
towns have grown up in new areas, mainly linked to modern communication lines.
The history
of the farms in this local history genre usually describes the development from
the first settlement some time between AD 0 and AD
1300 until today. But for the «genealogical» part of the books, ca AD 1600 is
the usual starting point. None might find information about individuals and
also a few family relations earlier, but never in any detail. From ca 1600
there are relatively complete tax lists of different types that lists the names of the farmers. From ca 1650 also other
sources gradually becomes available:
·
church
registers (baptisms, weddings, burials)
·
probate
registers
·
a
range of land registers
·
censuses
·
judicial
journals with information about individuals (defendants and witnesses) and even
families (cases on heritage, esp. after the ancient Norwegian odall law which gave the right to inherit the farm to the
oldest son)
·
more
and more differentiated tax lists (e.g. over cottars that didn’t pay ordinary
tax, but have to pay a small amount to the local church)
It is
usually possible to use all such sources for a parish project up to the late
1700-es. In the nineteenth century one usually have to leave out certain
sources, esp. different tax lists and judicial journals.
From the beginning of the twentieth century sources are less available
for other reasons, mainly privacy and the dissolution of the church’ control
over family life.
Such local history projects usually tries to give the same information up to
the present, utilizing open sources like obituaries and other family notices in
newspapers and (mainly) by compiling the necessary information between the
population living in the area while the project is running.
Without
going into any detail, the basic method a local historian usually applies in
such a project can be summarized to:
·
compiling
all relevant sources for his area,
·
copying
and sorting the sources that basically covers farm history in paper based
folders and
·
starting in one end of the area reconstructing and
writing each farm’s history.[4]
As a means
of help the author might find it useful to make a scheme of the development of
holdings under a named farm, including when the holding changed hands and the
name of the owner/user[5]
and wife/husband in the different periods, from sources organized by farms, as
land and/or probate registers, tax lists and censuses (see Appendix 2).
Today most
(or all) authors computerize the most important sources, the church records.
The most important censuses (1801, 1865, 1900) have
been computerized for the whole country, but some find it necessary to treat
also censuses from 1875 and 1891, or older census lists if existing.
After
having got a good overview over the named farm by drawing the «holding-scheme»
and at least most of the heads of families on the different holdings, the
author starts the part of the work that resembles ordinary family
reconstitution: a close examination of the church registers and other relevant
sources.
It is,
however, necessary to stress one particular element in the record linkage
process of such projects: before establishing a link the researcher should be
positively sure that it is correct. Due to the fact that many of the links in
the final product (the published bygdebok) will be
revised by genealogists, it is better to avoid an uncertain link than include
one that later may prove to be wrong. Too many wrong links in a bygdebok – esp. in the newer parts – might weaken the
reputation of the book and harm the sales potential.
The
reconstruction of the complete settlement structure of the investigated area
(registration/identification of all dwellings that exist or have existed in
the area for some time after AD 1600) is in fact of crucial importance in all
such projects whether one works with BSS or traditional methods. This structure
(name list) constitutes the main index of a bygdebok
of this genre, and the name of the farm usually is the most important
identification mark of individuals.
In
practice, this reconstruction will not be complete until the end of the project
period. During the record linkage process the author will rather often find dwellings that has not being identified before, esp. from
the eighteenth and first part of nineteenth century.
The BSS
system has been designed mainly to help the local historian in handling the
sources, register the dwellings, the record linkage operations and manuscript
output of such a project.
As a first
step, the dwellings found in the source material might be registered in one
operation. Alternatively, one can start directly with the computerized source
material, which of course must be re-formatted and imported before record
linkage can start. Some preparation has to be done prior to searching
(normalization of dates, person- and place names). Next, reconstitution of
families and persons found in the source material begins, and some brief
history might be written about each in the internal editor.
At the same
time families and persons are connected to the dwellings where they lived (one
or several). This last step can eventually be done at a later stage in the
process.
Finally,
the resulting material can be exported to a text file and normally further
prepared in a traditional word processor or desktop publishing program before
it is printed and published.
The overall
structure of BSS, or more correct, the underlying database of BSS, can be
divided in two abstract levels of information: the lower level of evidential
data, consisting of the computerised and imported source material described
above. Almost every assertion made in the process of reconstructing families
and persons is based on data at the evidential level. Because of this it should
remain static throughout the process, and it must be as complete as possible
before reconstruction begins.
The second,
higher level consists of the researchers conclusions
about persons, families and places, as he works through the compiled material
and investigates the historical recordings found at the lower level. Appendix 3
presents an overview of the model (leaving out most of the details).
Focus has
been set on describing a few basic entities, representing the idea of Persons,
Relations and Sites. A Person-entity refers to a real person who can be
identified and documented in at least one source (usually several). Persons are
related to each other using Relation-entities, defined to represent the
relationship between two equal main persons, with or without common children.
Site-entities represent dwellings of different types.
In
addition, Persons and Relations can be connected to one or more Sites with the use
of Group-entities (i.e. a group of persons). By means of this, one is able to
describe the life history of persons from birth to death, including what
relations they had at a certain time, where they resided in different periods,
and migration in and out of the researched area.
At the low
level, we find that the model is equipped with Event-entities to represent
historical events occurred. Each event usually has statements about
individuals, relationships and dwellings involved, which are to be represented
by EventObject-entities of an appropriate type. Of
course, the model handles all kinds of information present, like
source-citations, cross-references, names and dates, age and sex of persons,
remarks etc. A special entity has also been developed to take care of
eventually additional (structured) data.
Some
strictly informative attributes of the entities are shared among several of
them. In particular, this is the case for names (Persons and Sites) and dates
(Persons, Relations, Groups, Events etc.), and the full-scaled model has its
own entities representing this information.
As a
researcher investigates evidences found in low-level Event-entities,
conclusions he make results in entities of the high level; a Person, Relation,
Group or Site. Each EventObject is to be linked to
one and only one entity of the high level, thus serving as a documentation of
what premises have being used. In return, every conclusion about Persons etc.
should in general be based on (linked to) at least one evidence (EventObject) in order to exist. This rule applies at the
present only to Persons, otherwise it becomes too strictly.
In general,
conclusions made should be self-evidential with respect to the facts it is
based upon, and there is no need to record every single assertion made. Instead
the model is provided with a Validation-entity for representing somewhat weaker
conclusions or assertions that may be proved to be wrong. Then it is necessary
to record the assertion made only when it differs from «certain beyond reasonable
doubt».
BSS is
implemented in object-oriented Pascal, running on Windows-system computers
against a local database consisting of Paradox-tables. This solution will in
most cases suffice the needs and resources available for potential customers.
Much effort
has been laid down in designing a logic and
self-explaining interface, with easy-to-use tools at hand when needed. BSS is
intended to be flexible enough to support researchers whatever methods they
prefer in their work, but there are some guidelines worth paying notice to.
A typical
situation for a researcher is to search for instances of an actual person among
still unlinked events, known to have resided in a specific dwelling. The
selection has to be narrowed down until it contains only desired candidates.
Linking together the records found produces a new Person with attributes like
names and dates computed to reflect source data.
Next step
could be to repeat the process with searching and linking for a possible
partner to the first Person generated, thus imposing creation of a Relation
between the two, eventually followed by treating common children in the same
manner. The Relation (or family) should then ordinarily be connected to a Site
representing the dwelling. Then, move on to the next person supposed to have
resided in the same dwelling, and repeat the process. Using this approach one
is gradually working throughout the material, place-by-place, person-by-person,
until the desired result is achieved.
Since searching
and linking heavily rely on recognition and comparison of names (in particular
person and place names), one have to get rid of the many anomalies found with
respect to writing. To overcome this, a tool for normalization of all types of
names has been developed as a part of BSS.
Today
(early August 2003), BSS is still under development. Some of the vital
solutions have not yet left the drawing board. The needed routines for linking
together persons and families are working, and the registration of sites and
groups. What remains is mainly the connection between families (persons) and
places. As mentioned earlier, BSS is already being tested in a full-scaled,
actual project. So far the testing is promising. The plan is to implement what
remains of the system during the test period, including a tool for producing
final reports of the resulting material.
We already
have some plans about extensions of the BSS-application, in a long-time
perspective. An opportunity to analyse evidences and conclusions with more
convenient tools than today would be helpful, perhaps designed as a
SQL-interpreter. There is also needs for representing geographical data about
places (GIS-data), not accounted for today. Finally, some improvements have to
be done with today's solution of importing source material from the
computerised historical recordings, as well as development of tools for import
and export of structured, analysed data – and maybe web-oriented presentation
too.
In
addition, one can think of numerous tools in order to assist the researcher in
various situations. But there is a turning point where the system is growing
too complex, that problem has to be avoided.
1: The history of a
holding/dwelling. «Bygdebok for Lesja» Vol. 2 (1992)
page 162f.
2: Scheme, development of holdings and owners/users of a
Norwegian farm ca AD 1600–1900, example
3: The BSS model – simplified overview
Alsvik, Ola: Local history in Norway. At
the web site of The Norwegian Institute of Local History:
http://www.lokalhistorie.no/English/local-his.html.
Gissel, Svend et. al.: Desertion and
Land Colonization in the Nordic Countries c. 1300–1600. Almqvist
& Wiksell International, Stockholm 1981.
Johansen, Hans Christian: Urban
social and demographic reconstitution. The case of eighteenth
century Odense. In History and Computing.
Vol. 11 1999: 115–128.
Kjelland, Arnfinn: One
Tenant, Several Landlords. The Land Tenure System of Norway until ca. 1800.
Paper for the pre-conference «Land,
Labour and Tenure: The Institutional Arrangements of Conflict and Cooperation in
Comparative Perspective». The University of Leicester, England, August 21–24,
1996.
[1] Ocar Albert Johnsen: «Hurum Herred.
En historisk-topografisk beskrivelse». 1903. See more details of the genre by
Ola Alsvik.
[2] A more detailed description is
found in Kjelland 1996.
[3] The system is described in in Gissel, Svend
et. al., Chapter 4: Methods, Hypothesis and Study
areas. By Eva Österberg.
[4] Despite the large differences in
settlement structure between rural Norway and urban Denmark, the method has
some resemblances to the one described by Hans Christian Johansen.
[5] In Norway a relatively large group
of peasants owned their farms without interruptions from the Middle
Ages. The rest of them bought their farms from private or government landlords
and became owners in the period ca 1650–1850.