Norwegian - American Heritage History

Source: John Follesdal's book "Ancestors from Norway: An introduction to Norwegian genealogy research":
(See also his website: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~norway/na1.html#History)

Leif Eriksson arrived in the new continent in approximately A.D. 1003, landing between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia. A settlement was established.

"In 1620, the same year that the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock, a Dano - Norwegian expedition laid claim to land on the Hudson Strait in Northern Canada. Six years later, a Norwegian sailor named Sand acted as interpreter for Peter Minuit when he bought Manhatten island from the Canarsee Indians. A decade after that, a group of Norwegians settled in the Swedish colony in the Delaware River valley, while in upstate New York, Dutch landowner Jan Vanderbilt married a Norwegian woman, marking the beginning of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in the New World. In all, 57 Norwegians settled in the colony of New Netherlands (later New York State) between 1630 and 1674." (Source: James M. Cornelius, The Norwegian Americans (New York, NY: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989, p. 31-32).

It is generally accepted that nineteenth century Norwegian emigration to the United States started in 1825, when the sloop Restauration from Stavanger arrived in New York harbor.

By 1840 only about 400 Norwegians had emigrated to the United States. In 1850, the number had increased to about 15,000. The immigration wave picked up again immediately after the end of the Civil War, and in 1866 more than 15,000 Norwegian immigrants made the journey. Before the outbreak of World War I, about 750,000 immigrants from Norway had arrived in the US.

Between 1825 and 1940, about 850,000 Norwegians emigrated to overseas destinations. Seen as a percent of the total population, no other European country except Ireland had such large numbers of emigrants.

Perhaps as many as a quarter of all these emigrants at some point in their lives returned for good to Norway. After 1890 the emigration from Norway was a labor migration rather than a permanent settlement in new lands.

In the United States 3.9 million people indicated on the 1990 census that they had ethnic roots in Norway. There are similar groups in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other emigrant destinations. It is fair to estimate that approximately 6.0 million people worldwide have Norwegian ethnic roots; as compared to the 4.5 million population of Norway

The following books are recommended by John Follesdal as sources to better understand the Norwegian migration:

1. Norwegian Migration to America, 1825 - 1860, by Theodore C. Blegen
(New York, NY: Arno Press, 1969, 413 pp).

2. Norwegian Migration to America, The American Transition, by Theodore C. Blegen
(Northfield, MN: Norwegian - American Historical Association, 1940, 655 pp).

3. West of the Great Divide: Norwegian Migration to the Pacific Coast, 1847 - 1893, by Kenneth O. Bjork, (Northfield, MN: Norwegian - American Historical Association, 1958).

4. New Land New Lives: Scandinavian Immigrants to the Pacific Northwest. Compiled and edited by Janet E. Rasmussen, (Northfield, MN: Norwegian - American Historical Association, 1993, 320 pp.)