Knowledge of genealogical and personal stories and their preservation is an important part of protecting intangible cultural heritage.
[5][6] The organization has over 10,000 members and is a member of the Norwegian Federation of Cultural Heritage Organisations (Norges kulturvernforbund),[1] the Association of NGOs in Norway (Frivillighet Norge),[7] and the Study Association for Culture and Tradition (Studieforbundet kultur og tradisjon).
The society operates several internet services for genealogists: Slektsforum (Genealogy forum), Slektsforskerbasen (Genealogy research base), Gravminner i Norge (Gravestones in Norway), DIStreff (DIS connections), and DISchat (DIS chat).
The newsletter is available to members in PDF format at the society's website, and the editor is Aina Johnsen Rønning.
In 2001, the society and the National Archives of Norway signed an agreement on source indexing for parish registers.
The society's gravestone project (Gravminneprosjektet) is one of its most significant contributions to safeguarding perishable cultural heritage.
The purpose of the burial site index is to make it easier for genealogists to determine where particular individuals are buried, and to find birth and death dates for deceased relatives (e.g., single and childless persons) when oral sources or more recent church records are unavailable.
It is nonetheless becoming an important historical source because the gravestones that are photographed and indexed in the database will always be available, even after the stones are physically removed from the cemetery—thus allowing people to find ancestral graves online even after they no longer physically exist.