July 2005

How many Americans are there with Norwegian roots?

The answer we normally hear to this question is that there are more Norwegians in America than in Norway. That’s a funny answer, but not very accurate.

The major Norwegian emigration to the US began in 1825 with the Sloop "Restauration" from Stavanger. That was followed by 850,000 other Norwegians. From the original immigrants, some family histories show 12 generations of growth in America. In some periods, many families had 10 children or more. That has to be taken into consideration for estimating the number of American Norwegians, and even more important is to observe the mixed marriages which have caused some to consider themselves 1/2 Norwegian, 1/4, 1/8 etc.

The census record of 2000 tells us that four million Americans consider themselves to be of Norwegian descent, but the actual number might be higher. In his book "History of the Norwegian People in America", O.M. Norlie estimates a 20% increase per decade or 2% increase per year. If that were the case, there would be 10 million people of Norwegian descent in the US. Other researchers put the number to 30-60 million.

Confused? May we recommend a symposium on "Norwegian Heritage in the US: Resources and the Research Experience" to be held in Grand Forks, ND on October 10-11 preceding Norsk Høstfest. I got this information from Lorna Anderson. You may visit her website at: www.norwayinnovation.com.

The Norwegians have obviously been pretty successful in fulfilling the words of Genesis 1:28: "Be fruitful and multiply" Pr. Jens Dale

jens@mindekirken.org

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