From Voss to New york. Norwegian transmigration to America and the use of virtual worlds in historical research

The principal aim of this article is methodological: to assess the value of 3D virtual worlds for historical research on the one hand and for the dissemination of history on the other (section 7). The case study (section 4) is a virtual world portraying migration from Voss to New York in 1882 via the ports of Bergen, Hull and Liverpool (section 3). The historiography of 19^th-century migration has tended to emphasise the Norwegian and American ends of the journey (section 2), but the virtual world discussed here focuses on the lesser-studied middle stage of that journey: the transmigration across England (section 5). The second aim is to assess (and to champion) the value of microhistorical materials (specifically indirect personal stories) as historical sources (section 8).