News & Views

Some articles and information about Scandinavian research.

(For a printable version of these articles click here)

A Name Can Be “Carried” Across In An Unusual Way

by Mrs. Karin Christensen

Norwegian farm names can be "carried" across the ocean in different ways.

Isak Johnson had searched several sources in Iowa where his paternal grandmother had lived all her life. One record said that Mrs. Ella Peterson Johnson was born in Bergen on 13 December 1851. Another source reported that she was from Hardangerfjord, one of the large inlet fjords on the west coast of Norway, extending almost halfway into the country. But this information gave us no clue as to what parish registers to use to find Ella's christening in the Lutheran Church in Norway.

Almost by accident Mr. Johnson mentioned that a cousin had in her possession an old trunk with some rosemaling (old Norwegian folk art painting) and with the word Torsnes painted on it The immigrants had apparently carried this trunk from their farm in Norway to the place where they settled in the United States.

Names and numbers painted on these trunks are usually the place it which it was painted and the year the work were done. For a Norwegian, "Torsnes" suggests a farm name. By using the farm index books at the Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City, we did not find Torsnes farms in the area around Bergen. But one Torsnes farm was located in the parish of Strandebarm, one of the parishes on the coast of Hardangerfjord.

The parish register of Strandebarm was checked. The birth of an Eli (the Norwegian version of Ella) was found on born on 9.  December 1851 on the farm Thorsnes to Hans Pedersen and Anna Iversdatter. Her christening was on 26 December 1851. The preserved birthday of 13 December falls between these two dates and is only four days later than her actual date of birth recorded in the church record.

The rural history (bygebok) of the area tells of Hans Pederson selling the farm in 1862 and leaving for America with his family. By using this rural history, the parish register, probate and other records, we were able to connect this family to the early royalty in Norway.

It was exiting to learn  that in this case was solved from a farm name being recorded on an old trunk that the immigrants brought with them from Norway.!

 

Farm Names Are Important In Norwegian Research

by Mrs. Karin Christensen

Few Americans know any place names in Norway except  Oslo, the capital, and Bergen, both important port cities. Thus Norwegian immigrants of the last century often said they came from Oslo or Bergen, when at least eighty percent of them came from small farms. People who knew a trade and could earn their living in a Norwegian city normally felt no need to emigrate.       

Most of the emigrants sold all they had, their farms and farm equipment, to pay for their sea voyage. Many had lived on the same farm or small place all their life. They had vivid memories of what they left behind and knew that they would probably never see the place  again. To keep these memories alive, many emigrants took the name of their farm as their last name. This custom is a great help to genealogists trying to locate an ancestor's birthplace in Norway.

A lady asked me to trace her grandfather's pedigree. She said that his name was Louis A. Foss and that he was born on 10 April 1849 in Bergen, Norway.

An experienced Norwegian researcher can detect that the only correct part of this information was possibly the date of birth, and that Foss is a farm name that might help us find Louis' birthplace. Fortunately the lady knew the names of Louis' parents, Mathias Foss and Andrea Nytengnes. These names are Norwegian names slightly misspelled.

Foss is a common farm name in Norway, so it is difficult to locate the correct parish using that name alone. But Nytengnes might help. Sure enough, by using the Norwegian Postal Guide (1) and the twenty volume alphabetical list of all Norwegian farms with alternate spellings,  I found it. A farm named Nottingnaes was in the parish of Kinn, not far from Bergen.

With all the parish registers of Norway on microfilm at the SLC Genealogical Library, it was easy to look for Louis' baptism record. Yes, Lars (often Louis in the U. S. A.)  was born on 10 April 1849, the very date we had. He was a son of Mathias Anderson of Nottingnaes farm and of Andrea Andersdatter. Even though the Foss name was not present when Kars was born, there is enough evidence to accept this as the right family.

It is easy to understand, when you know both Norwegian and English, how Nottingnaes, spoken by a Norwegian could be recorded as Nytengnes by an American. We can also understand why a Norwegian, not knowing any English, could not spell such a name for immigration officials.

 

Sources  used:

 

(1) Klaus ReIsing and Ragnar Lundh, Norsk Stedfortegnelse, Postadresse bog for Norge, 2 vols. (Kristiania, Norway 1901) SLC Gen. Lib. Scandinavian reference area 948 ESh and microfilm 883,372.

(2) O. Rygh, Norske Gaardnavne Oplysninger Samlede til Brug ved Matrikelens Revision (Kristiana: W.C. Fabritius & Sonner, 1900-1915) Gen. Lib. call no. Staff 948.1 B4r.

 

Vol. 3 (microfilm 908,595) Vol. 5 (microfilm 908,596) Vol. 7 (microfilm 908,597) Vol. 10 (microfilm 908,598) Vol. 11 (microfilm 908,598).

Gamle Personnavne Norske Stedsnavne (Kristiania: W.C. Fabritius & Sonner,

1901-1924) Gen. Lib. Scandinavian Ref. Area 948.1 D4r.

Vol. 1 (1897) (microfilm 197,776), Vol. 4 (1900), Vol. 4, part 2 (1902), Vol. 9 (1912), Vol. 12 (1919), Vol. 14 (1901),Vo1. 14 part 2 (1901), Vol. 16 (1905), Vol. 17 (1911), Vol. 18 (1924).

 

Farm Names In Norwegian Research

by Elaine E. Hasleton

Frequently Americans with Norwegian ancestry have the surname of a Norwegian farm or a non-patronymic name associated with their family. Such was the case of a lady from Longmont, Colorado, who requested research on her "Sorvig" and "Skar" families. A cousin had told her that her grandparents, Elias Johansen Skar and Helmine Alsa Peterina Hansen Sorvig, were married sometime in 1887 and came from Helgeland, "way up north", in Norway. She did not know the name of the parish.

I examined the excellent Norwegian reference book entitled Norsk Stedfortegnelse, which is an alphabetical listing of all farms or place names, showing where each was located. From it I compiled two lists of parishes. One included farms named Skar and the other farms called Sorvig or Sorvik. There were many spelling variations of these two farm names.

The search for our parish was narrowed down to Nordland county since Helgeland is a judicial district within it. Next I saw which parishes containing these two farm names were near each other. I finally determined that Alstahaug and Heroy parishes must be the home parishes of the Skars and Sorvigs. Heroy parish had previously belonged to the Alstahaug clerical district but was divided from it in 1862.

In the microfilmed parish registers for Heroy parish I found the christening record for Elias Johansen Skar in 1863. I located the christening entry for his wife, Helmine Elise Petrine Hansdatter Sorvig, in the Alstahaug parish registers in 1867. Their marriage took place on 31 May 1887 in Heroy parish.

Locating these emigrants in their proper parishes was just the beginning. I continued searching in both parishes, locating baptism records for the brothers and sister of Helmine Hansdatter Sorvig. Her baby sister Anna Pauline died when only a year old in July 1872. This child's mother's death entry was on the same page. She died when the baby was six months old. No wonder the family in America had never heard of Anna Pauline nor had any information on her mother. Both had died in Norway.

We discovered that the mother of Elias Johansen Skar also died only days after the birth of her last child, a daughter, in May 1686. This baby died when three hours old, and the family had never known of her either. These parish registers answered questions the family had for years.

This method of using farm names to locate parishes of origin of emigrants is most helpful since there are thousand of surnames such as Olson, Anderson, Peterson, Christianson, and Helgeson all over Norway. These surnames are of no use in showing where an ancestor was born.

This account shows that the baptism records of the couple in question called them by their farm names. Norwegian immigrants to the United States frequently continued to use the farm name where they were born or had lived and may have even “Americanized” it. How grateful we are for this naming pattern, for it very often helps locate a home parish in Norway!

 

The Shred Of Evidence

By Elaine Hasleton

Where was Great-Grandma Mathelia Muslien Hough born? This question had

“plagued”  us for years. It seemed we had checked every reasonable source as it

had come to mind, but none revealed her birthplace in Norway.

In the summer of 1980 we decided to check some local sources when we went home to Minnesota for vacation. We set aside a whole day to go with Grandma and Grandpa, to visit family members in the Barnesville area. We took our three girls so they could become acquainted with their relatives.

Uncle Bud and Aunt Dede rehashed all they knew while we posed the standard genealogical questions. They did not know Great-Grandma's birth place either, but they had heard that she may have come from Sweden. Finally Aunt Dede said, "Why don't you visit the grandchildren of Mathelia Muslien Hough? They only live a few miles from here." We made some quick phone calls to make sure they were home, and were soon on our way across town.

At cousin Ruth's home we pulled out our large Pedigree Chart and quizzed them on the birthplace of Great-Grandma. They could give us details on Mathelia's ten children, where each had lived in Minnesota and their activities there, but no exact place of birth for Mathelia.

Then Cousin Olive recommended that we go to talk with Emery Mollerud who lived a few blocks from their house. He was related to the Houghs somehow. It was nearly dark and we debated about stopping at Emery's because we had three little girls who were very tired. But we felt we should try one more time since we had traveled hundreds of miles in pursuit of this problem. Grandpa and Daddy decided to stay in the van to watch the girls while Grandma and I called at Emery's door. Once we were inside, Emery brought out a thin book entitled Our Haugs in America. "That's interesting," I thought, "but the spelling in our family was Hough, not Haug." Besides that, we wanted information about the Muslien family. We knew Mathelia Muslien had married into the Hough family. Could this book mention her? As we skimmed through the book we stopped at the section that told about the second generation in America, that of Theodore E. Haug. There on page 21 we read that Theodore married Marie Muslien. Both of them were born in Aasnes parish in the district of Solor, Norway.

Since Marie and Mathelia were sisters, we thought that Mathelia might have been born there also. We learned that the sisters emigrated together and settled in the same area in Minnesota, and therefore our Mathelia probably met her future husband, John Oscar Hough, through her sister's husband. Theodore and

John Oscar were cousins because their fathers were brothers. Thus, Emery Mollerud descended through Theodore Haug and Marie Muslien' s line, and we descended through John Oscar Hough and Mathelia Muslien's line~.

We finally pieced that relationship together. With these clues we felt we knew Mathelia's birthplace. Upon checking, we discovered that the post 1848 records of the parish of Aasnes had been lost in a fire at the clergyman's office in 1929. No wonder we had never been able to locate her birth record. But we did locate a write-up of her parental family living on the Muslien farm in the AasnesBygdebok (local history book).

Using the Bygdebok, Oslo Emigration lists, U.S. and Norwegian census records, and family information, we were able to piece together this lost generation of family. We were then able to use pre-1848 parish registers to trace these family back additional generations, all from discovering Mathelia

Muslien Hough's birthplace in Norway.

Even a most unlikely source may hold the clue that ties families together. Such was the clue we found in the thin book owned by a distant relative.

Naming pattern in Norway

The naming pattern in most communities in Norway follows a long tradition. The forefathers or mother “lived” anew in the children.

The firstborn son or daughter should be named after paternal grandfather or grandmother.

After the first-born son and daughter had been named for their respective paternal grandparents, the second-born son and daughter should be named for the maternal grandparents.

If a child died, then the next child of the same sex was usually named for the one who had passed away.

If the two grandparents had the same name, then two boys/girls in the family had the same name

Later arrivals would likely be given names after aunts and uncles

The farming community in Norway (and Denmark) had many different levels of farmers and farm workers.

 

Bonde or gårdsman, or odelsbonde  or gårdbruker  or selveier- freeholder, farm owner

 

Dagarbeider-  day laboerer

 

Forpakter – runs the farm for its owner

 

Fattiglem- unemployed pauper (Lived by traveling and begging)

 

Bygselman- tentant farmer (Does not own the farm, but had a lease)

 

Innerst- farm laborer, residing servant (Could be renting room from a small landowner.

Was often seasonal farm workers)

 

Losjerende – renter

 

Leilending – tenant farmer (Does not own the land, but had the right to use it through a registered lease contract valid for many years – sometimes for generations)

Converting currency

 

To covert American money to any of the Scandinavian kroner:

 

Multiply dollars by the exchange rate.

 

Example $30.00 X 7.6055 = NOK 228.

 

To convert kroner to dollars:

 

Divide kroner by the exchange rate.

 

Example Swedish kroner 228 / 7.80= $30.00

Nordic ancestry