Used and new books such as village books and genealogy books are not necessarily easy to come by. They are often published in a very limited edition within a very limited geographical area.
The older the book, the harder it is to get hold of it. But don’t despair, here are 6 places where you can get hold of village books and genealogy books, old and new.
1. Libris bookstore
Let’s start with a perhaps well-kept secret. Libris bookstores focus on local history to a far greater extent than other large bookstore chains.
You can, of course, find village books and genealogy books at other bookstore chains, but not to the extent you do at Libris. However, you need to know a little about what you are looking for and where it is published.
At the top of libris.no you will find a menu item called Local literature, and it is here that you can find up to several village book publications from several places in the country.
2. Free bookstore
Fri Bokhandel is an association for small and medium-sized bookstores around the country. Today, the association consists of 70 bookstores.
These bookstores belong to a local community to a greater extent than the large chains and therefore also have a better selection of local literature, such as rural books.
3. Finn.no
In the same way as QXL, you can find village books and genealogy books for sale on the classified marketplace Finn.no.
In addition to private individuals, it is not uncommon to find antiquarian bookshops from around the country posting parts of their range here.
An extra nice thing about Finn.no is that you get the opportunity to set up an alert. You can then ask Finn.no to notify you when someone posts the exact book you’re looking for.
4. Antikvariat.net
This website is a must for anyone looking for old family and village books. Antikvariat.net is a joint outlet for more than 90 antiquarian bookshops from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
A quick search for the word «bygdebok» yielded more than 1,000 hits on Antikvariat.net at the time of writing. Genealogy books are probably not as common to find at antiquarian bookshops, as there may be an even narrower audience than for a village book. At the time of writing, a search yielded 60 hits on the word slektsbok.
5. Norwegian municipalities
Very often it is the municipality that is behind the publication, often in collaboration with the local history society.
Rural books tend to sell like hotcakes in their local communities in the first few months after publication. However, many municipalities are left with a backlog of several hundred books.
This means that even though the book may still be on sale through the municipality, even though it may be 5, 10 or 15 years since the village book was originally published.
It is not always possible to find information on the municipality’s website that the municipality sells bygdeboka, but an email to the service center will quickly provide an answer.
6. History team
Many historical societies publish their own annual journals, but some also publish their own village books and genealogy books.
You can find these by Googling them. If the local history society doesn’t have its own website, there may be a group on Facebook that deals with local history. In these groups, there is almost always someone who knows about the local history society and whether it is possible to buy books from them.
Happy hunting!
