Sources
The project will use printed Danish and Norwegian “high school yearbooks” (of graduate cohorts 1810-1943), published by the University of Copenhagen and University of Oslo and “technical school anniversary books” (of graduate cohorts 1850-1950) published by intermediate and tertiary-level technical schools.
These volumes contain richly detailed biographies of entire national graduate cohorts, published 25 and 50 years after their graduation, or as anniversary books. The biographies include information on 1) first and last name; 2) birthplace; 3) date of birth; 4) middle and high school (name and graduation date); 5) technical school/university level education (country, institution, study program and graduation date); 6) parents’ names; 7) father’s occupation; 8) spouse and children (names, place and date of birth); 9) study travels (purpose of travel, countries, organisations visited, and travel period); 10) work abroad (countries, organisations, often work positions and period of work); 11) work in home country up to the date of publication (organisations, often work positions and period of work); 12) memberships of societies.
In addition to the abovementioned biographies, the project will use annual university reports, which included high school and university grades achieved in each subject and overall, by every high school and university graduate in their respective countries (1800-1940). These were published by the University of Copenhagen and the University of Oslo.
Next, the graduate biographies and grade lists will be linked to the nominative censuses integrated in the Historical Population Register of Norway (HPR) and Link Lives of Denmark.
Linking the educational database with population registers is a key goal to gain additional information about a) ascending and descending generations, b) the lifespan of non-graduates, i.e., the peers of similar age in the censuses who did not complete secondary and tertiary education c) family links, e.g., siblings who did not obtain an education.
The population censuses identify name, sex, date and place of birth, occupation, any household member’s relationship to the head of household, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and education in 1950, of individuals residing in Norway and Denmark at the day when the enumeration took place. Since the respective population registers include links to other vital events in a person’s life span, i.e., birth(s), marriages, migration, and deaths, we can follow each individual's life trajectories in a much more detailed way than earlier.