Finn Karlsen was born in Trondheim, Norway and is now a retired employee of The Regional State Archive of Trondheim, a division of The National Archive of Norway, where he supported patrons and gave presentations.  He was chairman of the national board of The Genealogical Society of Norway (DIS-Norge), 2004-2006, held several positions in the regional branch of the organization, and was a frequent speaker. He has written several articles for historical publications; and with Norwegian TV-celebrity Tore Strømøy, Finn co-authored “På sporet av deg selv”, a book about starting with genealogy in Norway. In the Norwegian edition of Who Do You Think You Are on National Television NRK, he was one of the main researchers and presenters in 4 episodes.

Finn developed a searchable database with more than 1.8 million records for the regional branch of the Genealogical Society (DIS), which includes more than 900 different sources mostly from the mi ddle part of Norway. The database, called Trondheimsbasen, was primarily indexed by regional members of the DIS and has sold more than 1500 examples.  In retirement, he enjoys developing courses on genealogy for both beginning and more advanced researchers. He was a speaker at Rootstech in 2014 and 2016, and participates at SLIG 2017 with partial FamilySearch sponsorhsip.