7. Iceland and Genealogy

 

Iceland is an island nation of some 358,780 souls occupying 40,000 square miles in the frigid North Atlantic, complete with glaciers and active volcanoes.  The island was initially settled by Irish monks and then peopled by the Vikings.  Today, virtually everyone in Iceland is related. 

 

Recorded settlement has conventionally been dated back to the year 874 AD.  Towards the end of the tenth century, Christianity came to Iceland.  Iceland eventually fell under Danish rule as one of the world’s great sea-faring nations. Iceland gained its full sovereignty towards the end of World War II.   

 

Today, you will find a national database entitled islandeningabok which is a genealogical database for the entire country, going back to the 9th century.  Talk about a genealogical goldmine!  This is it. 

 

The www.islendingabok.is website hosts the online registry Íslendingabók (“The Book of Icelanders”). In it you can find information about the families of about 720,000 individuals who were born in Iceland.

Young dating Icelandic couples use the database for example, to make certain that the person they are dating is not a close cousin.  Family historians use the database to trace back their individual family trees.  Do you have an Icelandic heritage? If you do, you are in luck with a resource seldom available to folks from other jurisdictions.  

 

Ron Gilmore

Email:           rvg3@me.com

Website:      https://www.rgenealogy.ca