How My Forty Year Old Brick Wall Was Broken: The Benevolence of Strangers and the Problem with Names

This is a brick wall that my Aunt Dorothy and I began working on in the 1970’s and it took Forty Years to solve! Sadly it was solved 17 years after my aunt passed. And it happened over ten years ago! I have written several drafts but I am hoping to properly thank those genealogists that made it all possible. First off a thank you to my Aunt Dorothy who was better at the early Swedish and Norwegian research than I was. Tusen takk for the generosity of countless Norwegian genealogists and kin. They are second to none! Please be patient with brick walls and overdue thanks yous. Although I said thank you back then, I continue to feel gratitude to all who united Elizabeth with her roots. To those with your own brick walls be heartened that BRICK WALLS do fall and sometimes in the most unexpected ways. Here is one such story.

BRICK WALLS

Elizabeth Olson is my 2nd great grandmother and my mother & aunt’s great grandmother born in 1827 in Norway. She emigrated to the United States in 1852 which we knew way back in the 1970’s from the 1900 Census. My Aunt Dorothy had also located a lovely church registry in Red Wing, Minneapolis [see below]. Back in the 1980’s which listed her birthplace and Winge Sogn. I had written to all the all the County Archives in Norway with a Vinje, Winge, Vange etc looking for a birth record for either Elizabeth or her younger sister Sigrid Olson, but to no avail. All letters came back they could not be found.

We also had the purported names of her parents from her sister’s death certificate listed as Olaf Olsen & Jennie Jestedatter. So for the next 4 decades we chased down leads– that led to NOWHERE!

Then in 1973 I contacted a DNA match at ANCESTRY using the then “new” search feature looking for ones with the Lan [county] Sogn og Fjordlane, Norway where I thought Elizabeth’s Vinje was located. My great Aunt Verna Lundberg Tripod had even written her name and “from Near Bergen” on the back of a photo of Elizabeth. And my mother used to tell a tale of her skiing down the slopes to get to Bergen. Well my match at Ancestry, Terry, said he didn’t know how we were related but he ran a private Norwegian Genealogy Research group on FACEBOOK and if I’d like he would place my query there. That was 2 July 2013, I said yes, I would appreciate that. Here is what Terry Romstad posted:

At the time I was not a member of Facebook. Now seeing as this was a brick wall I had been searching for 40 years I really did not expect much. The next morning I got an email from Terry. A wonderful researcher had found Elizabeth, her sister Sigird, their emigration records and everything matched except the names.

So in less than 24 hours I went from no parents for Elizabeth to her parents and sister’s birth records just like that! It was Jean Marthler who found the records!!! And here is the kicker if the archivist had not been caught up with the names but matched the baptismal records they would have been located back in 1983. Here is the letter.

NAMES

So one VERY IMPORTANT MORAL is don’t get caught up on the names and especially when you are dealing with someone whose native language was not English. In this case Asloûg took Elizabeth as her Americanized given name. The English ‘Elizabeth’ and Norwegian ‘Asloûg’ both mean “consecrated or given to God” so this was not a name simply plucked at random. [Please note people did not receive a new name upon arrival—however they often took up a new name after arrival.] Her last name, in contraindication of the Norwegian patronymic system– where her last name would be her father’s first name plus “dotter” as in Elifesdotter, she took her father’s last name Olson dropping the double “ss”. So Asloûg Eilefdotter, daughter of Elif Olsson, became Elizabeth Olson. And it makes sense that not only her first name, but her choice of a last name would be based soundly in the land she chose to make her own. Add to the fact that Olson was a great deal easier than Eilfesdotter or Eilfeson. Then to further muddy the naming waters, sixteen years after Elizabeth’s immigration, her sister, Sigrid, joined her in America [1868]. After arrival, Sigrid took the last name Olson as well. So my advice to my much younger self, is ask for any child born/baptised in a small village on or about the day in question. These days we have access to the digital records so this is not as much of a thing. Lest you have any doubts that this is the right person further DNA matching has proved it!

SCANDINAVIAN RECORDS

If you are lucky enough to have Scandinavian ancestry you are lucky indeed because there records are second to none. I had been quite successful researching my Swedish Ancestry and Norwegian records are just as wonderful. Not only are baptisms, marriages and burials dutifully recorded we also have confirmations, household examination rolls and all the comings and goings of people in and out of the parish and immigration records and ship’s passenger lists. So if you are lucky enough to finally cross the pond and locate your ancestor in Norway as Jean Mathler did for me, a treasure trove of records awaits you. I highly recommend the Family Search Library guides:

• Denmark
• Finland
• Iceland
• Norway
• Sweden

BENEVOLENCE

You have seen how a DNA match at Ancestry, Terry, led to a fellow, Norwegian Researcher Jean but it did not end there. The number of people on the Norwegian genealogy Facebook Group and elsewhere that helped me along the way with Asloûg’s ancestors, translations, books ect is numerous but two individuals are stand-outs. The first is Sharon who it turns out is a distant cousin and she sent me pages and pages of Family Group Sheets and Family trees for Gunvor Gislesdatter’s Ancestors [Asloûg’s mother]. And the other was A lovely retired schoolteacher from the Vinje area, Øystein Løk, whose kindness was overflowing. He sent me the Vol 3 of “Her budde dei” published in 2010 by the Vinje Hisorleilag and it has many, many references to my ancestors including this one which shows Aslaûg and her sister Sigrid and that they both immigrated to “Amerika.” Though I do not speak Norwegian you can use Google Translate to transcribe. I have underlined her parents and Aslaûg and her sister Sigrid. Please note both Aslaûg and her sister are listed as “Ho reiser til Amerika” or She travels to America. Proof positive we got the right family. [Click on Photo to see full image]

Øystein tirelessly helped with translating the old dialects of the old family history stories. How else would I have been able to understand the stories of Lazy Lodvord my 5th great grandfather. And it was Øystein who provided me with photos of the farm where Asloûg was born.; Jabrenne,

More to Asloûg’s story and ancestry hopefully in future posts. You won’t want to miss the story of Lazy Lodvord!

Tusen takk! Jeg elsker nordmenn.

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