The topic for Week Five brought to mind the members of my Norwegian family and the fact that they were sailors.

Until I started this family history obsession, or mission, I really did not think about careers that could separate you from your family.  My father had a retail business . He came home very night after work for dinner and returned to his job the next day. He repeated the process six days a week thorough out his career. Farmers work their land, long hours tending crops and animals but in the end they sleep in their own beds and eat dinners at their own tables. My Grandfather on my father’s side was a minister. His Sundays were very busy.  The rest of the week was spent preparing for Sunday, ministering and take care of his church members and their families but once again he was able to return home and sleep in his own bed at night.

Sailors get on a ship and sail out to sea for months or even years at a time. They are constantly working. The ship doesn’t stop and anchor for the night. It moves 24 hours a day seven days a week. The sailor will get short periods of down time when they can catch a few hours or maybe just minutes of sleep or eat a quick meal made by someone on the ship. A sailor must always be at the ready. If the seas are rough, there will be no dinner or sleep until the seas calm down. There is always a crew manning the ship.

So now, lets talk about the sailors in my family. There is my Great Grandfather, Hans Andersen and his two sons, Andres and Hagbart.   On the small island where they lived, at the turn of the century, there were very few choices of occupations. One was a framer but you must own some land to be a farmer. You could be a shopkeeper but you needed a building to run your business out of.  Or you could work on a ship and be a sailor. You did not have to own a ship. The Captain of the ship owned it and they were always looking for a crew. It was the nature of the business.

Hans was a sailor. Listed below are a transcript of Hans’ voyages. Some of the names of the ships and destinations I can not decipher. I did my best trying to translate them. I was sent this document by the great niece of the woman who became Hans’s second wife, Mathilde Zainer.

Her great niece’s name is Inger Zainer. She is very active in the local Tjome Historical Society. We met online first, as I tried to get someone to translate some postcards for me. She very generously volunteered to do so. We met in person in 2017. She arranged for us to go into the home which Hans and our family lived in. It was a moving experience to say the least.

Hans Voyage Transcripts came from a database which contains what appears to be data from a Norwegian agency which recorded official records of all the ships, sailors, ports of call and who they sailed for throughout their careers. As a sailor, they did not get a job with one ship and sail just on that one ship. They sail on different ships from one season or voyage to the next.

Hans the Sailor

Hans’ Voyage Register and timeline of life events

March 31, 1880 – Aboard the ship Rebekka from Svelvig, Norway to America returning to Drammen, Norway on September 3, 1880

October 15, 1880 – Aboard the ship Geo Washington from Tonsberg, Norway to Hamburg, Germany returning to Tonsberg on November 23, 1880

March 29, 1881 – Aboard the ship Salo from Tonsberg to America returning to Tonsberg on December 14, 1881

On February 7, 1882, Hans Henrik married Ingeborg Lansrudattra. (this is of course not apart of the registry but I place it here as a timeline for the reader)

March 30, 1882 – Aboard the ship Salo from Tonsberg to America returning Tonsberg on September 17, 1882

June 2, 1883 – Aboard the ship Thorbyerg from Tjome to England returning to Tjome on January 14, 1884. There are no details about the numbers of ports the ship visited.

On September 16, 1883, Andres was born in Tjome while Hans was at sea.

March 31, 1884 – Aboard the ship Waaberanker from Tonsberg to Larvig returning to Tonsberg on August 21, 1884.

March 25, 1886 – Aboard the ship Nina from Tjome to America returning to Liverpool on April 4, 1887.

June 28, 1887 – Aboard the ship Gorille from Tonsberg to Rochefort, France returning on December 6, 1887

March 3, 1888 – Aboard the ship Norway bound for America returning April 2, 1889 to Sandefjord, Norway

On September 12, 1888, Jakob Hagbart was born in Tjome and Hans was at sea.

July 22, 1889 – Aboard a ship (possibly the Winnepeg) sailing back to Rochefort, France returning to Tonsberg but no date is given.

April 29, 1889 – Sailing aboard a ship whose name I can not figure out. It returned on August 6, 1889 and leaving again returning on September 7,1889. No port of call were recorded in this line in the record.

January 28, 1891 – sailing on what might be the the Enterprise out of Tjome to the United Kingdon on June 2, 1892 to Grenada i the Caribbean.

On September 9, 1891, Haakon Ingwardo was born in Tjome. I can not be sure if Hans is home or not at the time of Haakon’s birth.

June 23 1893 – Sailing outbound and returning on February 2, 1894.

April 5, 1894 – Aboard the Sir John Lawrence to the UK and on to Grenada returning to Tjome on March 21, 1895.

On September 18, 1894, Hans’ wife, Ingeborg , died of TB. Based on the record above Hans’ was at sea for nearly a year before returning home. He would have learn of his wife’s death upon his arrival home in March of 1895. Hans’s mother, Olava Jorgansen, cared for her grandsons after their mother died.

March 28, 1896 – sailing on the Sir John Lawrence out of Tjome to the UK and the record seems to indicate that he did not return until February 18, 1897. While he was sailing his young sons were in the care of his mother, Olava.

On March 18, 1898, Hans married his second wife, Mathilde, Zainer.

June 4, 1898 – Sailing outbound  for places unknown and returning on November 3,1898.

April 13, 1899 sailing aboard the Hovding returning December 2, 1899.

After 1899, Hans retired and returned permanently to his home on Tjome. He bought a sailboat that he used to take tourist out into the Oslo Fjord during the summer on day trips. He also took fisherman out to fish but now he is home each night.

Andres the Sailor

It is at this time that Andres  began to his career as a sailor.  He completed his primary education at the Tjome school in 1898 and the 1900 census lists Andres in Hans’s family but it indicates that he is an apprentice seaman working on a ship called the Alma which is registered in Tonsberg but he is working out of London. The record indicate that he is in his second year of his training. Andres sails out of London for the next four years. After a trip to America, he decided to immigrate. He arrived at Ellis Island on April 1, 1904.

Andrew, as he is known in America, begins working on the Great Lakes under the direction of Gustav Englehart. He works on the Steamer Geo King in 1908. The Geo King is moving trees from Duluth, Minnesota to lumber mills in Michigan. By 1909, Andrew is working on the William Edenborn according to post cards that he received.

On December 9, 1909, Andrew married Addie Densmore and at that point it must have been obvious that he was planning to stay in America for good. Andrew and Addie spent the first few months of their married life in Chicago Harbor “keeping ship” on the “Henrietta” which was moored there for the winter. Addie signed on as the Ship Cook the first year that they were married. They had their wedding photo taken in Chicago.  Addie worked as the ship cook  until she became pregnant with their first child, Olga.

Andrew when back to working on the Steamer Geo King until 1911 when he signed on as a crew member of the Steamer Walter Stranton.

At this point I can not tell you exactly how long of a stretch Andrew was at sea for sure. It was weeks at a time and sometimes months but since he sailed in the Great Lakes and not in the Oceans it was not nearly as long as his father had.

Andrew continues to sail until 1918. His draft record for World War I indicates that he now works for the Electric railway which runs from Port Huron to Detroit.

Hagbart the Sailor

 

Hagbart finished his schooling in Tjome in 1904. At that time he became an apprentice seaman who worked out of London just as Andrew did. He sailed for four and a half years in the North Atlantic before taking a crew position on a ship which sailed to New Castle, Australia. This would be an extended voyage that would likely last a year or more Hans and Haakon impatiently awaited a letter from Hagbart once he arrived in Australia but the letter did not come. After nearly a year, Hans received a large package which contain the unopened letters which he had sent to Hagbart. There was no explanation in the package. He knew then that there as something very wrong. Several weeks later he received a letter from a crew member on Hagbart’s ship with the sad news that Hagbart had become sick with a fever as they rounded Cape Horn in southern Chile. He reported that Hagbart was sick for two weeks and they were no where near land. He died on  March 13, 1909 on the ship and was buried at sea.

Being a sailor took all the Andersen men so far away from their homes.

Happy Hunting,

Jan

 

What comes to mind for me when you say “Close to Home” is when families stay in the same general area for several generations. When grandchildren and grandparents grow up and old together. When cousins grow up together and are your first and longest friends. When adult siblings remain close and they often are doing things together. In 2020, I believe that this is a rarer occurrence than ever. The small towns of America just do not have the jobs that can support families. Adult children need to move to locations where they can find good employment opportunities. Retirees move to the small towns where the cost of living becomes more affordable.

I have found through my family history research that our families were wanderers. Searching for that right place to raise families. We have many lineages who have moved to another county, state or territory in search of a better life. We will look at one family today and their descendants.

James and Susannah (Overly) Smith and their fourteen children were a prime example of a wandering family.  They were from Darke County, Ohio and they left Ohio for Indiana between 1843 and 1847. James W Smith was the last child born in Darke County, Ohio in 1843 and John F. Smith was the first born in Nine Mile, Indiana in 1847. The older adult children moved with their parents but most of them stayed a very short time in the Nine Mile, Indiana area before moving on.

Margaret Smith married Benjamin Davis after his first wife died in 1851. Benjamin, his wife and family had come from Darke County with James and Susanna along with several other families. In the 15 years that Margaret and Benjamin were married, they had 6 children. Benjamin had six children from is first wife. His three oldest children were married before Margaret and Benjamin were married but the three youngest were raised by Margaret. Margaret died in her mid thirties after the birth of her last daughter, Elnore in 1866 and prior to Benjamin Davis marriage to Hannah J Spencer in 1868. I have not found the exact date that Margaret died. With the death of Margaret, Hannah now raises Margaret’s children and two of her own.

Mary Ann Smith married Jonathan Kimble in Pleasant township, Allen County, Indiana in 1852.  They had their first son, Jacob in Indiana in 1853 before they moved to Pickaway County , Ohio.  By the 1860 Census, Mary Ann has had three additional children who were born in Ohio. It appears that Jonathan and Mary Ann return to the Nine Mile area when Mary Ann and her daughter Susanna became ill.   Mary Ann and her daughter, Susanna died in 1868.  They were both buried together in the Nine Mile Cemetery with the rest of the Smith family members.

Sarah married Robert Hood and they settled in Columbia City, Whitley County, Indiana. Sarah and Robert Hood had three sons; Robert F., James A., John William. James died at 2 months old. Sarah died in 1873 at the age of forty.

The Smith brothers, William and Branson along with several of the Benjamin Davis’s adult children moved to Madison County, Indiana in the late 1850’s and early 1860. They settled in Pendleton and married two sisters, Hannah and Emily Kinnamon.

Charles Smith died in the Civil War and a daughter Kisiah died a short time after Charles. They are both buried with their father in Nine Mile Cemetery.  Joseph Smith moved to the Grand Rapids area of Michigan with his sons after the death of his wife in 1890. John Franklin and Henry Charles have been very elusive. In the 1900 census, I find John F Smith living with his niece, Dora E Whitely in Grant County, Indiana. He is listed as single, never married.

Of all of the adult children of James and Susanna, only three remained in the Fort Wayne area to raise their children. My two times Great Grandfather was one of those three remaining adult children.

Front row: James F. Wert, Lulu Etta Wert, Alvin Sparks, Everett Smith, Virgil Sparks, Talmedge Sparks, Nora Sparks, Ethel Straley

Second row seated: Ruth Jackson, Dora Smith Jackson, Cora Crites Smith holding James Fredrick, James W Smith, Oella Denny Smith, Dessie Heckman holding Virgil.

Row three standing: William H Jackson, Alvin O Smith, William Sparks, Della Smith Sparks, Oscar Jackson, Homer Wert, William F. Smith, Francis W. Smith, Arena Straley Smith.

James and his wife Oella (Denney) Smith had five children who they raised near Nine Mile, Indiana.

William F Smith was a farmer who lived in nearby Wells County. My Great Grandfather, Alvin Smith and his wife, Cora Crites and their two children left the Fort Wayne area in 1919 for Flint Michigan where the new auto industry was flourishing and providing many new opportunities for employment. Alvin landed a job at the auto plant which today is the GM Truck plant. By 1920, Alvin’s brother Francis also came to Burton and became an auto worker too. In 1925, Alvin who was 51 years old, had a fatal heart attack while working the assembly line.

Cora and her sons, Everett and James Fredrick remained in Burton, Michigan. Everett became a minister and Fred followed in his fathers foot steps by working his entire career in the auto industry.

My Grandfather was Everett Smith. Everett’s ministry took him and his family to three Michigan counties during his career; Genesee, Lapeer and St Clair counties. In today’s mobile environment these three Michigan counties are relatively close together but in the mid 1930 through the late 1950 they were quite a distance apart. He was ordained in the Methodist church. They moved every few years as the Methodist Church found new places that he needed to attend to. He served in 8 churches in three counties. Everett and his wife Lillian had two children. Their first daughter Lucille died when she was six years old. Their second child was my father, Harold.

Harold met my mother Leah while his father was the minister at the Marine City Methodist Church. When they married, they lived in Lapeer near Everett and Lillian for four years and Harold worked in retail for J.C. Penney.  In 1955, shortly after I was born they moved to Romeo, a small farm town in Macomb County, Michigan, where Dad found employment with a family run clothing store called Egelstons.

We moved into a new small rural subdivision built by the Fritz Family and lived on Fritz Drive. We had no family nearby.  Our Grandparents live in opposite directions thirty miles away. We had no cousins on my fathers side of the family. My Mother was one of eight children so we had many cousins on her side but we lived so far away that we only saw them for special family events.

Our neighborhood was filled with young families who had come from all over Michigan or even from around the country to fill jobs being created by industries that were directly or indirectly related to the automotive industry. These young families became our friends, our cousins, if you will. The Randalls, the Jacobsens, the Trombleys, the Hughes, the Deaners, many of whom were are still friends with sixty years later.

Happy Hunting,

Jan

 

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week Three – Long Lines

Long lines … interesting.    Long lines could mean a lot of things.

Return lines at Walmart after Christmas.

Or check out lines at a grocery store before a good winter storm in Michigan.

Or lines at a gas station in the south before a hurricane.

Or the dreaded TSA lines at the airport or customs lines

In genealogy or family history, long lines can have a few different meanings too.

Ancestors who were all fisherman, preachers, career military, scholars, teachers, lawyers, shop keepers, inn keepers, farmer,  patriots, government officials, statesman, Earls, Dukes!

Or your long lines can be lineages, lengthy lineages…

So lets look at my mother’s side of the family.

In Norway…

Soren Ostre Kjole (1565-1604) – 9th Great Grandfather

Anund Olsen Sevik (1613-1697)  – 8th Great Grandfather

Ole Evansen Vestgarden (1620-1680) Kristi (1630-1693) – 8^th Great Grandparents

These Norwegians are all fisherman.

In the Netherlands…

Andries Van Valkenburg (1540-1609) Lea Kittel (1560-1609) – 11X Great Grandparents

He was a nobleman.  This family left the Netherlands but at this time in history the borders between Germany and the Netherlands changed often  depending upon which warring faction raided the area this week.  In the midst of the Palatine persecution, Many Germans/ Dutch people left for safer countries.

In England…

Sir John Reynolds (1590- 1641) Sarah Chesterfield (1614-1657) – 8th Great Grandparents

Sir George Reynolds (1555-1634) Thomasyn Church ( 1566-1634) – 9^th Great Grandparents

Sir John Spencer (1300-1386) Alice Deverell – 18^th Great Grandparents

Sir Richard Deverell (1275-) – 19^th Great Grandfather

Sir Richard Polard (1278) – 19^th Great Grandfather

John Bailey ( 1618-1696) Lydia Backus (1637-1696) – 8^th Great Grandparents

Henry Baylie (1583-1638) Elizabeth Reade (1590-1620) – 9^th Great Grandparents

William Backus (1606-1664) Elizabeth Ellen Cook (1603-1643) – 9^th Great Grandparents

Sarah Moss – 10^th Great Grandmother

John Alexander (1603-1677) Agnes E Graham (1597- 1677) – 9^th Great Grandparents

Sir John Thomas Graham (1573-1626) Margaret Ruthven ( ) – 10^th Great Grandparents

John Pratt (1565- 1619) Elizabeth Webb (1567-1615) – 9^th Great Grandparents

William Gooden ( ) Elizabeth White (1591-1676) – 9^th Great Grandparents

Robert White (1558-1617) Bridget Allgar (1562-1605) – 10^th Great Grandparents

Edward Dix ( 1616-1660) Deborah (1615 ) – 8^th Great Grandfather

Anthony Dykes (Dix) (1580-1638) Tabitha Pittman (1605-1688) – 9^th Great Grandparents

John Perry ( ) Judith Vassell (1582- 1650) – 10^th Great Grandparents

John Vassell (1573-1625) Anna Russell (1549-1593) – 11^th Great Grandparents

Lord Jean de Vassal (1519-1612) Anne Hawes (1528-1545) – 12^th Great Grandparents

Frances Russell (1527-1585) Margaret St John (1524-1594) – 12^th Great Grandparents

John Burnham (1500- ) Dorothy (1501-) – 11^th Great Grandparents

Thomas Andrews (1512-1593) Anne Wiley (1544-1633) – 11^th Great Grandparents

Johane (Thomas) Franklin (1514-1570) Alice Alme (1525-1622) – 11^th Great Grandparents

And on my father’s side of the family….

In Germany ….

Jacob Cruetz (1680-1753) Maria Catherine Pette (1685-1719) – 8^th Great Grandparents

Hans M Raupp (1623-1694) Anna Catharina (1625-1683) – 9^th Great Grandparents

Hans Simon Nagel (1623-1693) Catharina (1625-1691) – 9^th Great Grandparents

In England….

William Dudley (-1684) Jane Lutman ( ) – 9^th Great Grandparents

Edward Slade ( -1604) – 12^th Great Grandfather

Sir Thomas Leete (1520-1582) Lady Dorothy of Warde (1528-1587) – 12^th Great Grandparents)

Robert Shute (1530-1590) Thomasine Burgoyne (1527-1577) – 11^th Great Grandparents

George Strong (1556-1636) Ann Bond (1560-1628) – 11^th Great Grandparents

Deacon William Holton (1608) Mary Winche (1612-1691) – 9^th Great Grandparents

All the English ancestors listed for both the paternal and maternal side of the family are early Colonial Settlers and /or their parents who may have remained in England. These that came to the colonies all arrived as free man and many are or have ties to nobility which is why the families have been painstakingly recorded. Peasants have much less accurate information. This is by no means a complete list but I thought it was enough for illustrate some “long lines”.

All the German/ Dutch ancestors left due to warring factions and instability in their home countries and promises of a new beginnings in the colonies. The Dutch and German except for nobility, came as indentured  settlers who became free after several years of dedicated service to colonies and the current Crown.

I had not really looked at theses lines for a time and was pleasantly surprised how many there were.  A number of years ago, I used a iPhone App called “We’re Related”.  It was a Metadata Crawler program which once started just continually ran comparing your tree data to other data on Ancestry.com. It was an app under the ancestry.com umbrella of tools.  Much of these long lines were established  through the use of this app and then researched to verify the accuracy of the data.

I have a new phone and I can no longer find the app in the app store.  I am not surprised the app is no longer available.  I am certain that the app reeked havoc with Ancestry’s network.  It was good while it lasted.  After the first year, I was so overwhelmed with data, that I started a spreadsheet and maintained it for  few years. All that data is now a part of my research pool.  When I have extra time or a research puzzle.   I dig into that data, use ancestry, familysearch.com and all my other tools.

So there you have it…a few on my “long lines”.

Happy Hunting,

Jan

Family Photos had an important place in my journey into our family history search. They were a launching pad that laid quiet for twenty nine years.  The launching pad’s foundation was laid one summer day at the picnic table in the back yard of our home in Imlay City.   We were having a picnic.  My Father had gone to Detroit to get his parents and bring them to Imlay City for the day.  Grandpa had MS and was wheelchair bound. They lived in a retirement home that would enable them to have a somewhat independent living environment but also give Grandpa the 24 hour a day medical care that he needed.   It was an early version of the assisted living type centers of today.   Grandma brought a large box of old dusty photos with them.

After eating our picnic lunch, Dad went back to work at the dime store, Mom went off to do dishes and Grandma brought out the box!  It would be her job for the day and I soon learned that it was mine too.  It was one of the last boxes that she needed to go through since they moved there five years before.  “Janet, I need you to help me” she said.   “Darn it”  I thought. I had lingered at the table just a few minutes too long.   “I need you to write on the back of these photos for me. ”  she exclaimed.  “Why do I have to?” I whined.  She  stated that my handwriting was better than hers.  And with that I was stuck for the next couple of hours being her scribe!

She dumped the content of the box of photos on the table and it created a nice size pile. I thought this is going to take hours!  I sat at the picnic table with Grandma Lillian and Grandpa Everett and we sorted through old photos. The Photo’s were of people from a long time ago.  Faces I had never seen, young and old, in small towns in front of unknown houses. They were of Grandpa’s  family, the Smiths, his parents, grandparents,  his uncles, aunts and assorted cousins. It was almost like a game. Grandma would show Grandpa the photo like a flash card and he would tell us who it was.  She would hand the photo to me to write the name on the back.  So I wrote the names that I heard; McGoogan, Wert, Sparks, Meeks, Crites, Jackson, Smith and Denney. I wrote them on the photos in my 13 year old hand writing. Most were misspelled but I was in a hurry! I had better things to do, you know!

Some time later, Grandma went thru the photos again and wrote notes on the back trying to describe the family relationships. Notes like Grandpa Crites’ sister, Everett’s favorite Cousin, Grandma Crites’ mother. All added to assist someone to understand who these people were many years from now when she and Grandpa were long gone and someone decided to look at the old photos in this dusty box.

Twenty nine years later, I decided to add the people that I “know” to a family tree in Family Tree Maker. I had bought Family Tree Maker for my husband for Christmas. He had been using an old DOS based software for his family information.  My father had died the year before and I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at this while my mother was still living.

I was trying to figure out who Grandpa Smith’s parents were and where they came from. Grandpa Smith told me that he was born in Indiana, I remembered that much. I talked to my Mother and she tells me that she has this dusty old box of photos that were Grandma and Grandpa’s. My next visit to Michigan, we got the photos out. As I search through the dusty box, I was startled by handwriting on the back of the first photo. Chills ran up and down my back and tears began to well in my eyes. Suddenly I was flooded with the memory of the afternoon at the picnic table with Grandma and Grandpa. I am in awe as I notice that Grandma wrote on the photos too. Grandma was talking to me loud and clear.

She sent me research hints to find twenty nine years later. Some of the hints sent me on wild goose chases and some goose chasing were of my own doing when I spelled the name wrong but each stoke of her pencil and mine gave me a place to start. After spending an hour or so with the box, I realized that it was much smaller than I had remembered. And there weren’t THAT many photos! Oh what I would have given to be able to ask Grandma and Grandpa some questions now. I was so lucky to be able to spend “that time” with my Grandparents that day. It was a gift that I will always cherish.

If you are the keeper of your family history, make sure you find someone to share it with a generation or two younger than you. Even if they do not seem as interested in it as you would like. It is important for these memories live on. Label your photos and make sure the young children in your family hear the family stories so they can understand and experience the joy of keeping the memories of their ancestor alive.

How my Grandmother knew that I was the one who would take on this mission, I’ll never know but she knew. Thank you, Grandma Lillian! I love you too!

Having to pick one favorite photo is really difficult because I love them all.  The all speak to me at high volume!

Happy Hunting!

Jan

In the last 120 years communication around the globe has really changed. I wish I could tell my Grandfather how easy it is to talk to our cousins in Norway in 2020. I just meet a new one on Facebook this week!

My Grandfather, Andrew Anderson left Norway and arrived in America in 1904. Through the years he was in contact with his family through letters which at times of good/bad news were fairly frequent but at other times were scarce. He often received a post card like this birthday greeting from his Grandmother in the early years in America.

During WWII any mail sent to or from Norway was subject to search by the Germans who occupied Norway. If the mail was deemed inappropriate, it would be confiscated. The following is an envelope from a letter which Hans sent to Andrew. In the letter he tells of his wife’s death just before the war. He assures his son that he is in good heath and safe. The seal on the envelope allowed the mail to continue on it way to America and proves that it was read.

After Andrews father died in 1946, Andrew seem to quit communication with his sister-in-law, Anna, for a time. Anna had legal obligations that she had to do to close Hans’ estate. She pleaded with him for answers. She was left in Norway to handle these details with Andrew in America and Haakon in Japan. Her requests seemed to go unheard by Andrew. She begins to think she doesn’t have the right address.

Haakon was a fairly frequent writer from China and Japan. Being a missionary and away from his family for long stretches of time, letters were his only way of communicating. Andrew seemed to answer his letters but it may have been his wife, Addie who was pushing him. Haakon wrote to him in Norwegian so he had read them, Addie could not. When Addie died, Andrew wrote his brother. As the years went by so, the length of time between letters grew and the communication became less and less.

When Andrew died in 1971 and my mother found his letters from Norway which of course were in Norwegian and she was unable to read them. They were wrapped in a bundle and placed in his top drawer of his dresser. She had found an address for Anna, the woman she knew who was her Aunt so she sent her a note to tell her of Andrew’s death. She had no way to know if she would get it or not. It was returned, address unknown and was lost.

In January of 1972, my Mother got a phone call from a man in Minnesota who introduced himself as “a cousin of Sigrunn Ingwardo”. Mom did not recognize the name except Ingwardo .  He explained that she had married my mother’s cousin, Bjarne Ingwardo. Now that name she knew was her cousin in Norway. Bjarne and Sigrunn were planning a trip the America to visit family in Minnesota and were hoping that they could visit Bjarne’s family in Michigan also while they were in America. This January phone call established contact with the Norwegian and American cousins after a decade of silence.

Bjarne and Sigruun came that summer to visit and we all had a wonderful time getting to know each other. Before Bjarne and Sigrunn left to go back to Norway, my parents had already made plans to visit Norway the next summer. I was married and had a nine month old son so I stayed with my siblings while Mom and Dad took their trip. Mom and Dad met the whole family including the children.  My Father took a lot of photos.

Soon after this trip that my younger sister, Sharon and our cousin Rita became pen pals. For several years Rita and Sharon corresponded regularly.

My Mother was finally able to give Anna the news of Andrews death and we were given the news that Haakon had died the year before Andrew.  My Mother corresponded with her Aunt Anna after they returned but eventually Aunt Anna died and the letters stop too.

In 1997 I started my family history search adventure. It was after my Dad had died in 1996. About 2000, I started working on the Norwegian side of the family. I used a tool that I frequently used on RootsWeb. I posted a message on a Norway message board trying to locate Ingwardo family members in Olso. Within 24 hours, I had a response. A kind fellow Norwegian researcher, gave me postal addresses and a couple of email address.

The first email I had was to Olaf Ingwardo. Olaf was Bjarne’s older brother, I remember him from my Mother and Dad’s trip. I sent him an email and explained to him who I was and that I was trying to connect with my Norwegian relatives. We conversed quite regularly for about 18 months.

He caught me up on the family news. He told me about his three daughters and their families. He told me that Bjarne  and Sigrunn had divorced. and that he had moved to Copenhagen and had married a Danish woman. He told me that Sigrunn had died. He told me that he had divorced.

Through our email conversations I determined that he seemed angry and a bit bitter. in one email I wanted to talk to him about his father who had been a missionary in China.  I got an earful. I learned that I had to be careful with the topics of our conversations. He was bitter about the German occupation of Norway during Worlds War II, Anna and her children were in Norway and Haakon was stuck on China. Life was difficult for Anna and the children in Oslo. My Mother was still alive then and I told her about what Olaf had said. She said that they had been warned when the visited Norway that Olaf was bitter about the war and it was probably not a good conversation topic…

All the while that Olaf and I are conversing I assume that he is sharing news about the relatives in America with Bjarne and his sisters. One day he sent me a short email.  He told me that he was going to have to go to the hospital. I knew that he had some medical issues but did not know anything specific. I told him that I would pray for him and that unleashed a scathing email about God. I was stunned. He was convinced that there was no such thing as God or why would he have placed Anna and the kids in Norway and Haakon in China during the war. I was speechless. I did not know what to say. It was the last email I received from Olaf.

I waited about three weeks and I sent an email stating that I hoped he was ok and recovering…no response. Waited another three weeks, no response. Sent an apology, no response. After many months of no response I wondered if maybe he had died. So I went out to my Rootsweb Message board and sent a message looking for a Ingwardo in Denmark. Once again, within twenty four hours I received a response. They gave me a postal address to Bjarne Ingwardo in Glostrup, Denmark.

I wrote Bjarne a letter and mailed it on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend in 2004. In my letter I included my address and phone number. At the time, I was living in the suburbs of Chicago. On Memorial Day, I received a phone call “ Hello Janet, This is your cousin Bjarne in Denmark! Have you had a good Memorial Day Holiday? “ I was stunned. Bjarne confirmed what I suspect. Olaf had died during his hospital visit. He had no idea that Olaf and I had been conversing for the last two years. We spoke on the phone several time in the next few weeks as he made plans to visit us.

Bjarne and Ingrid arrived on Tuesday after Father’s Day 2004 and stay for nearly three weeks. He spent most of the first week with us and I took them to see the sights of Chicago. Then I drove them to my Mother’s house in Harbor Beach where they spent a week with the family members there. My brother from Grand Rapids came and got him in Harbor Beach and the last week I went to Grand Rapids to retrieve them for their flight back to Denmark. From this time on we have been able to maintain fairly regular communication with Bjarne and Ingrid by phone and through the internet.

In 2009, my Mother died. After all the legal stuff was taken care of we, all six of her children, decided that we would take apart of our money and we would go visit Bjarne in Denmark and hopefully Norway as well. So we contacted Bjarne in the spring of 2010 and asked it we could come for a visit in September of 2010. He told us that they would be delighted to have us and asked if they could come to visit us in time for our Annual Camping trip during the summer.

 

We visited Denmark in September of 2010. In the middle of our trip we took an overnight cruise across the North Sea to Oslo where we finally got to meet our cousin Rita in person. She became our tour guide for the day as she proudly showed us Oslo. It was a wonderful tour but much too short.

I had spent many months of researching, translating and pouring over Norwegian databases. I had learned that our Grandfather was from Tjome which was an Island located on the south west side of the Oslo Fjord. While we were cruising back to Denmark about dinner time I stopped to look at the GPS map which showed me the ships current location. I was just in time to see that we were passing Tjome.  I knew someday I would return.

We speak with Ingrid, Bjarne’s wife regularly thru the internet. He is aging and his health is not good. In 2016, my sister, Sharon and my sister-in-law, Diane visited Germany when my niece Kelsey was studying abroad. During their two weeks in Germany they decided to take the train to Denmark to surprise Bjarne and Ingrid with a visit.  During that trip Sharon convinced Rita to come to Denmark to visit from Norway. They were ecstatic when she came too.

In 2017, my sister Sharon purposed that we (she and I) should go to see Bjarne since his health has been getting so much worse. She reasoned that it would not cost much because we had already done a lot of sight seeing. We would not need to do any of that!

After a bit of thought, I told her that I agreed but I was not going to go all the way to Denmark and not go to Norway. I said the trip would have to include Norway for a few days so we could visit Tjome.

Since our visit in 2010, I had made several important contacts in Tjome. I had met Inger Zeiner who was the great niece of our Great Grandfather’s second wife, Matilde.  She had helped me to fill in many holes in our Norwegian heritage. What Inger could not tell me, her friend Lars could. I had written a lengthy article for their historical society biannual publication called Tjome, about Andrew, our Grandfather and his life in America. They were looking for a Tjome native who immigrated. Where did they go and what did they do?

So we quickly formulated our plan which included Norway. She casually mentioned to her son Zach, that we were planning to go and he decided to make the trip with us. Personally I think that he thought that she and I should not do this trip alone. Bless his heart!

It was important to us to meet Bjarne’s children so we can stay in contact with our Norwegian Family.  Its quite easy these days to communicate with family around the world. I have connected with Bjarne and Olaf’s, children and grandchildren through Facebook and on the internet. And we stay in touch with Bjarne through his wife Ingrid.

What a difference 120 years makes for communicating. It is totally amazing.

Happy Hunting.

Jan