A Norwegian Passport ~ Ole Iversen

Last week I shared the Migration Record of my 2nd great-granduncle, Ole Iversen with you. That document was found in Norway's Digital Archives website. While I was doing research in that amazing website, I found the passports for Ole Iversen, his wife Anne and their daughter Guri. How exciting!

Today I'd like to share Ole's passport with you.¹ I'll share Anne's and Guri's passports in future posts.

The full image above may be a bit difficult to read, so here's a cropped portion of the image showing Ole's information.

Information found in this document

Given name: Ole
Last name: Iversen Marteplads
Gender: m
Age: 35
Issued/presented: 20 April 1858
Individual remarks: af Naes, 65 Tommer, undersat, blaa, morkebrunt
Id: og00000000903791
Serial number: 121
Fee: 64 s

I cropped the "Individual remarks" section of the document even further.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I don't read or speak Norwegian. So once again I posted a translation request in the Norwegian Genealogy Group that I belong to on Facebook. And as before, I did get help. Two kind people responded. I was especially interested in this "Individual remarks" section of Ole's passport. It appears that this is a physical description of Ole Iversen. How cool is that!?

With the help from the kind people in the Facebook group, here is the translation of the "Individual remarks" section.

Individual remarks: of Nes, 65 Tommer = inches tall (5'5"), undersat could mean stocky build, blaa means blue which must refer to Ole's eye color, and morkebrunt = dark brown which must refer to Ole's hair color.

We don't have a photo of Ole, so reading this physical description of him is really wonderful.

Ole and his family immigrated to the United States in April of 1858. The Migration Record for Ole and his family didn't have a specific date. It only had April in the date column. Since Ole's passport was issued on 20 April 1858, this tells me they left Norway sometime after that date.

Norway's Digital Archive is such a wonderful website. If you have Norwegian ancestors, I highly recommend giving it a try. And, if you'd like to access the passports section of Norway's Digital Archive, click HERE.

Thanks for reading!

Jana

 

© 2015 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved

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1 “Passport protocol for Hallingsdal bailiff's office 1856-1865,” database, The Digital Archive (https://www.digitalarkivet.no : accessed 24 February 2015), entry for Ole Iversen Marteplads, 1858, Buskerud, Flå, Gol, Hemsedal, Hol, Nes, Ål, Hallingdal bailiff; citing: The State Archives in Kongsberg.^↩