Daily Ancestorgaard
Gaard (modern gård) means a farm; in Norwegian records it is a named, numbered landholding, and its name was often part of a person's name.
FamilySearch explains the gård as the unit designated with a name, and from the 1800s also with a farm number; one farm could be divided into several parts called bruk. Baptism entries give the farm where the family lived, which is often the key to finding them in a bygdebok.
In most records written before about 1915 the letter å is written aa, so gård appears as gaard, and a farm such as Vågen may be spelled Vaagen.
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How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "gaard." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/norwegian/gaard. Last checked 2026-10-28.