The Norwegian Emigrant Center

The Norwegian Emigrant Center was established in 1986 – to help descendants of emigrant Norwegians find their Norwegian roots – exactly 150 years after the schooner bridges “Norden” and “Den norske klippe” left Stavanger on a course to America, with a total of 167 emigrants on board . The annual emigration flow from Norway had started. Today, the tide has turned. Therefore, we also turn our attention to today’s immigration to Norway.

We still help people find their ancestors or living relatives, but in recent years we have spent more and more time and resources on teaching and projects aimed at seeing the connection between our historical emigration and today’s immigration. That was precisely the core of our Capital of Culture project, YAM2008. The Capital of Culture year is now history, but the digital learning program on global migration, You And Me , lives on. You can read more about the program under e migration in the left menu. The Emigrant Center is also concerned with preserving our rich emigrant history. That is why we are leading the collaborative project Migration Rogaland

– a fundraising project aimed at documenting the emigration from the county – and we have been active supporters during the construction of the emigrant ship “Restauration” – a replica of the very first ship with emigrants on organized flight from Norway and Stavanger in 1825. You will find more about Migration Rogaland in the menu on the left, under projects.

If you are interested in migration in general, or genealogy in particular, we would like you to get in touch!