Finding marriage and divorce history of a person in Norway

[samuelton]

Hi , I'm trying to find out if a person that used to live in Norway had been ever married in Norway previously. Is there a database that we could potentially search the name of a person and find out if that person ever got married in Norway? or is there any organisation that can give us this information legally? 

Endret Februar 16, 2023 av samuelton

[Inger Hohler]

Hi samuelton, and welcome to the forum.
The answer to your question depends on which period, and where that person got married in Norway.
The closest you get to an old, historical database is the searchable one found here in the Digital Archives, see the banner at the top for link. As for the older data in the Digital Archives they may be lacking for a plethora of reasons. Some church records are lost, some exist but have not been entered into the searchable database, and some names have been garbled beyond recognition.

In addition to church records there used to be a magazine called Norsk Kunngjørelsestidende/Norsk Lysningsblad the late 19th century , where, among others, planned marriages were announced (until 1974). You need an Norwegian IP address, or actually visiting a library in Norway to look through the magazines, and the more recent data is not available. But there is not 100 years restriction on these data. Very occasionally a planned marriage fell through.
 
Currently all marriages are registered at whatever department is responsible for family affairs. (The departments sometimes det split or joined, which results in new names for the appropriate department.) Marriage status is then registered at Folkeregisteret. A person who is divorced, or has became a widow/widower will have such status indicating that they have previously been married. Technically information about someone else's marriage status is not given a strong privacy protected by law, but you still need what is deemed a 'good reason' for obtaining it from Folkeregisteret. Getting that information as a private person can be difficult. If, for instance, this is about finding children or even existing spouse who may be benefiting from an inheritance, a lawyer/solicitor would be able to secure the information. If it is a general family history question about possible family connections I doubt the request will receive anything but a decline.

It may be possible to get married abroad according to local laws and not have it registered in the new database - but then they would not have been married 'in Norway', which is what you asked about.

Occasionally a marriage announcment can be found in a newspaper, and some of these are searchable if you have a Norwegian IP address, or can visit a Norwegian library.
You can ask for help on the forum to find this information about anyone who is now deceased. You will have to provide as much relevant information as possible, with references. Date of birth, if known, place of origin, full name, names of other family members in Norway, and if possible records of emigration/immigration would be helpful.

However, please notet that the forum guidelines require that you use your full name as your display name. https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/content/change-display-name