ICELAND FAMILY HISTORY
Seljalandsfoss,
Iceland Waterfall
Iceland is a beautiful country.
It has beautiful waterfalls like the
Seljalandsfoss Waterfall depicted above.
The name, Iceland, suggests that it is only a country of ice, and that
it is very cold like the North or South Pole, but that is not the case. Located in the North Atlantic, its northern
coast lies just below the Arctic Circle and the island itself straddles a
volcanic tear on the ocean floor known as the mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland’s
climate is more moderate than that of prairie Canada, with mean temperatures in
the capital Reykjavík ranging from -0.5°C in January to 10.6°C in July. The
island lies in
the path of the North Atlantic Current, which makes the
climate of the island more temperate
than would be expected for its latitude just south of the Arctic
Circle.
It has active volcanoes (over 100) as shown below.
Hekla Volcano 1970
It is also known for spectacular Northern Lights or
Aurora Borealis as demonstrated below:
Aurora Borealis
The following is a timeline for Iceland provided by the internet site, www.iceland.is:
7-8th centuries: Celtic monks sail to Iceland.
~860s: Norsemen discover Iceland.
~871: Ingólfur Arnarsson, a Norse nobleman, settles in Reykjavík.
930: The Althing, a judiciary and law-making body of chieftains, convenes for the first time at Thingvellir. Population in Iceland estimated at 30,000–40,000.
~982: Erik the Red discovers and names Greenland after being banned from Iceland.
999 or 1000: Christianity adopted in Iceland.
1000: Leifur Eiríksson discovers what is now known as North America.
1120s–1230s: Most of the Icelandic Sagas—tales of family feuds and heroics—are written.
1262–1264: Chieftains in Iceland accept the sovereignty of the King of Norway.
1402: The Black Plague infects Iceland. Over 33% of the population is wiped out.
1387: The Kalmar Act of Union unifies Iceland and Norway with Denmark.
1540s–1550s: Reformation in Iceland.
1584: The Bible is translated into Icelandic.
1703: First census is conducted; population 50,358.
1707: Bubonic plague; one third of the population dies.
1783–86: Volcanic activity destroys Icelandic farmland and leads to widespread starvation.
1800: The Danish King orders the closure of the Althing.
1840: Census
1843: The Althing is re-established.
1845: Census
1850: Census
1853: Census
1855: Census
1860: Census
1870: Census
1880: Census
1874: A new constitution is introduced by the Danish King (Christian IX).
1870s–1890s: Mass emigration to North America.
1890: Census
1901: Census
1904: Home rule is granted.
1910: Census
1915: Women receive the vote.
1918: Union Treaty grants Iceland full sovereignty in a royal union with Denmark.
1920: Census
1926: Population reaches 100,000 for the first time.
1940: Iceland is occupied by British troops.
1941: US-Icelandic defence agreement signed; US troops stay in Iceland for duration of WWII.
1944: The Republic of Iceland is formally established.
1949: Iceland becomes a founding member of NATO.
1951: Defence treaty concluded with the US; US troops return to Iceland.
1958–1961: Dispute over fishing limits, first ‘cod war’ with Britain.
1960: The number of Icelanders in Reykjavík and surrounding areas surpasses the number of habitants in the countryside for the first time.
1966: Icelandic state television begins broadcasting.
1968: Population reaches 200,000.
1970s: Two further ‘cod wars’ with Britain (and West Germany).
1980: Vigdís Finnbogadóttir elected president, the first democratically-elected female head of state.
1986: The Reykjavík Summit between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Secretary-General of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev takes place in Höfði, Reykjavík.
1994: Iceland joins the European Economic Area, an economic arrangement with the EU.
2006: US troops leave Iceland.
2008: Economic crisis, near total collapse of Iceland’s banking system.
2009: Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir becomes the country’s first female prime minister (and the world’s first openly gay prime minister).
2010: Residents in Iceland number 318,200, Icelandic citizens 296,700.
CENSUS
Notice from the timeline above that there was a census taken
in 1703. That census shows that there
were 50,358 people in Iceland. Also
notice that shortly after that, in 1707, the bubonic plague caused the death of
one third of the population. That means
there were only about 16,000 people left in Iceland after 1707.
Also notice that there was a mass migration from Iceland to
North America in the 1870s to 1890s.
These events have a significant effect on family history.
There were many censuses that were taken in Iceland that are
searchable:
1835, 1840, 1845, 1850, 1855, 1860, 1870, 1890, 1901, 1910
and 1920.
These censuses are searchable at the Iceland National
Archives website http://www.manntal.is/
At the website above, the website page will first appear in the Icelandic language. Up at the top right corner of the page there are three symbols:
Three Symbols at top right
Use the mouse to click on the middle symbol to translate the website into English. You should then see:
Census Search Window
From the screen above you can see that in order to search
the census, your search will be most successful if you know the name, time period and place (Farm/house,
position, parish and county) where an ancestor lived.
Parishes and counties
A list of parishes and counties in Iceland can be found atthe following website:
Census Example
The following is an example of how to use the census
The following is an example of how to use the census
In the book, Icelanders Gather to Utah (Salt Lake City Family History Library, Call # 979.2 Fad, by David Alan Ashby), there is the an annotated list of immigrants to Utah from Iceland. Agnar Hjalmarsson will be used as the example to find him and his parents, Hjalmar Bjornsson (father) and Eygerdur Eyjolfsdottir (mother) in the 1880 census. The 1880 census will be used because the annotated entry says they emigrated from Iceland to Utah, USA, in 1883.
This is the entry (click on the image to enlarge it):
Agnar Hjalmarsson annotated entry
The entry references another book, The Icelanders of Utah (Salt Lake City Family History Library, Call # 979.2 F2a). That book has an annotated entry for Agnar Hjalmarsson as follows (click to enlarge):
Using the information that Agnar was born at Tjorn a Vatnsnesi, Vestur Hunavatn from the book Icelanders Gather to Utah, and that Agnar was born in Hunavatnssyslu from the book The Icelanders of Utah, you could find the parish and county that Agnar was at in 1880. The parish and county can be found in the listing at the following internet address:
ALL 300,000 ICELANDERS ARE RELATED
The information below is incredible. The information comes from the following website:
Read this:
Everyone in Iceland is related. Every member of the 300,000 population derives from the same family tree, according to genealogy website islendingabok.is. The islendingabok.is web site hosts the online registry Íslendingabók (“The Book of Icelanders”). In it one can find information about the families of about 720,000 individuals who were born in Iceland at some point in time. Anyone who is registered in the database has free access to it.
Go to the website above to read more about this.
There are two catches to be able to use this website.
1. You must be a citizen of Iceland to use this website.
2. You must know the Iceland language to use this website.
The following information comes from islendingabok.is
The database Íslendingabók contains genealogical information about the inhabitants of Iceland, dating more than 1,200 years back. Íslendingabók is a collaboration project between deCODE genetics, a research company in the field of medical genetics, and Friðrik Skúlason, an anti-virus software entrepreneur. The project’s goal is to trace all known family connections between Icelanders from the time of the settlement of Iceland to present times and register the genealogical information in a database.
In the creation of the Íslendingabók database we have used various sources and both unpublished and published documents. Most of the genealogical information comes from sources such as church records, national censuses, inhabitants registers and other public documents, but in addition to these sources there are chronicles, books of convictions, various publications on genealogy, books about individuals within specific occupations, lists of descendants and ancestral records as well as memorial articles to name but a few
.
The database is in Icelandic and is unfortunately not available in other languages.
Access to the genealogical database Íslendingabók is currently limited to Icelandic citizens and legal residents of Iceland who have been issued an Icelandic ID number (kennitala).
BECOME AN ICELANDIC CITIZEN
Iceland allows dual citizenship. This means that you can apply to be an Icelandic citizen and if you have Icelandic ancestry, you many be able to be a citizen of your present country and also a citizen of Iceland.
