I began my journey when I was thirteen, though the teenager in me would not allow myself to realize it. I was too busy doing teenage age stuff. I could not be bothered with this “family stuff” .

My Grandparents had moved from their home to a retirement home, where my Grandfather, who had Multiple Sclerosis, could get the care that he needed when my Grandmother could no longer help him. She was a tiny 120 pound woman and Grandpa, after years of living in a wheel chair, had ballooned the well over two times her size. He was always a big man and she was always tiny.

Now they are in a split apartment, a small space for Grandma and Grandpa during the day and a hospital type room for Grandpa at night. They went thru all their belongings as they downsized. They lived in the heart of Detroit which was not ideal for our family but it was where they needed to be. My father and our family would visit them regularly. On holidays and during the summer, my father would go get them and bring them to our home. It was for them a very needed change of scenery.

My “beginning” happened on one of these summer events when my Grandparents visited soon after their move. Grandma Lillian had obviously been going thru things and had dusty box of photos that she was going to go through while she was visiting. They were seated at the picnic table in the back yard as I ran out the back door. I was on my way to go do my most important thing of the day, hang out with my friends. I had made plans and nothing was going to get in my way!

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! As I was headed to my friends, she called me over to the picnic table to see this old box. I had more important things to do that afternoon but it was my Grandmother. She needed my help she told me. She had this job that she wanted to complete at the picnic table and she needed my help. I moaned and groaned with all of the drama that my teenage self could muster but it was to no avail, she had nominated me to be her scribe and that was that!

For the next hour or two, 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. They were of Grandpa’s Dad and Mother, their parents, 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. It was my duty to write the name on the back of the photo. 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. Some were misspelled. I wrote them as I heard them. I had not time to ask them about the correct spelling because I was after all in a hurry! I had better things to do, you know!

Grandma took those pictures back home with her and some time later, she 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 decides to look at the old photos in this dusty box.

Fast forward 30 years, I now live in Illinois and my husband works regularly on his family history and I am mildly interest in what he is doing. He is using an DOS/ Gedcom based tool that I thought just looked too complicated so for Christmas I bought him Family Tree Maker. It was new and a Windows based application. Since I was a Computer Support Analyst by trade, I installed the application for him.

I found it interesting and decided to enter just the people that I “know” ! My father had died the year before so I no longer had anyone to ask where our family came from. Grandpa Everett 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 Grandpas. During next visit to Michigan, we got the photos out. As I search through the dusty box, I am 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 am 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 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!

I am still at it Grandma Lillian and have met a lot of really wonderful family a long the journey!

Love, Jan

Not really, my PC has been in the shop getting fixed.. (with my Family Tree Maker data on it so I had limited access to the data that I regularly use…) The first place ( a well-known big box store) could not fix it after having it for nearly eight weeks but today I got it back after 4 short days from my small town Office Supply store! Support your local stores. They need our support more than ever now. Had I supported them in the first place I would never have skipped a beat. I got plenty of other things done in the last eight weeks but almost no blogs! Small business to the rescue!

I will be back to blogging soon. Hope you have all been doing well, staying healthy and blogging on.

Jan

This is a blog that I wrote ten years ago and published on a different site. It still rings true today! Somethings have changed and many things have not so today I have edited it a bit and added pictures that it did not previously contain but the message is the same….

“Lord, could we talk for a few minutes? ”

“I knew you would say yes!  You are such a good listener.  Wish I knew how to listen as well as you.  Feel free to jump in here anytime, especially if I start to ramble!  I just have a few important things to talk to you about today.”

“First things first, do you remember those explorers you sent out? You gave them the courage to sail all over the world. They were men who sailed day and night, day after day, month after month. They left their homes not knowing if they would ever return. I can not imagine the fear that must have built up in those brave souls, not knowing where they were or where they might end up. They had no itinerary, they were sailing blind! Nor can I imagine the joy and excitement they must have felt the day that they finally did see land on the horizon.”

 ” Thank you, Lord, for them, their courage, their safe travel and their discoveries!”

“Remember all those brave people who left Europe and came to America when it was a wild settlement. They left their known world for an unknown world. Their courage to me is incredible. They left everything they knew with the hope of having something better in the “New World”. They hoped for a “New World” that they had the power to create! “

“Thanks, Lord, for their safe travels and their determination to make America the land of the free.”

“You gave them courage to stand tall and fight for the freedom of democracy that we have today. They thanked you on the first Thanksgiving and we thank you today on our Thanksgiving of 2020. You provided them with food for their first Thanksgiving and the first brutal winter in the New World and you do the same for us today.  “

“You provided us with people who are civic minded and focused on America and making it the Democratic country that we love.  You gave us people who are courageous enough to become members of our military, leaders, governors, senators, congressmen and judges. You have guided their decisions and our country has most often flourished. The road is bumpy today and has been bumpy in the past but with your guidance you have always pulled us through. We, as a people, do not always agree on every thing but we do agree on the importance of our freedom. It is a critical part of our Democracy! So once again today we say Thank You.”

“You gave me wonderful Grandparents who loved me and whom I adore. It was many years later when I finally understand their importance, how much they taught me and the influence that they had in life. You gave me parents who loved me, encouraged me and had the courage to let me spread my wings and fly when the time came. They “cheered me on” when I flew and were there to help “pick me up” when I fell! It takes courage to let your child fall. Thank you, Lord!”

“You gave me the world’s best siblings with whom wonderful memories have been created. You taught us to love, to share, to encourage, to champion, to support, to listen, and to enjoy! Thank you Lord and incase you are wondering, we have just gotten started with a new bunch of memories. So stay tuned!”

“You gave me two sons, whom I love. You gave me the courage to raise them when I was just a child and to set them free when they became adults. You helped me through the smooth sailing and the rough seas and for that I am grateful. Thanks so much for teaching me balance, know when my role in their lives should be in the foreground and when it should be in the background. Your guidance is most appreciated when the line is fine. I am still listening.”

“And then for my second chance in marriage, thanks so much for sending my husband across my path first as a friend and then as my companion for life.  Help us to learn to sail through the still waters and the rough seas enjoying the adventures which it brings.”

“Thanks for my Grandchildren, help me to know what they need to learn from me, as my Grandparent knew what I needed to learn from them.  Please give me the right time and place to teach them the lessons. They are so very special and carry our family on into the future.”

“Then there are nieces, nephews, cousins and friends who you orchestrated into my life at the exact times they should be there. They have blessed me with their gifts and I thank you for these blessings.”

“You have given me the opportunity to peek into the lives of my family members who have come and gone long before me and I am grateful. You have blessed me with the ability to get to know wonderful people who I will never met or who are related to me through these early settlers that you brought to America and I am grateful.”

“On this Thanksgiving, and each day of my life, I have been blessed! THANK YOU, LORD!”

“You let me ramble, you have this listening thing down to a science, don’t you? Have a Great Day!”

Love, Jan

Maritie was born on May 5, 1688 in New Amsterdam, New York. She is the daughter of David and Hillegondt (Ver Planck) Ackerman. David and Hellegondt had four children as far as I can determine; David (1681), Johannes (1682), Geyln (1686-1688), Maritie(Mary) (1688).

Mary married Swain Ogden on May 5, 1711 in Hackensack, New Jersey. Mary and Swain had ten children; Elizabeth(1711) David (1714), Samuel (1716), Hellegondt (1719), Hulda (1719), Nathaniel (1722), Abraham (1724), Sarah (1724), Mary (1726), John (1729).

Two hundred and sixty four years ago, Mary Ackerman Ogden died in Hackensack, New Jersey. She is buried at the First Presbyterian Churchyard in Orange, Essex County, New Jersey with her husband and several of her children.

Rest in peace, Mary!

Love, Jan

Maritie Ackerman Ogden is my second cousin nine times removed.

Each summer my parents would load up the station wagon and we would go camping for a week. Grandpa Anderson always came along with us. Grandpa (Andrew) Anderson was my Mom’s Dad. His wife, my Grandma Addie, died in April of 1955, a few short months before I was born. Once my parents moved to Romeo from Lapeer, he came and visited us often. He would drive from Marine City to Romeo and stay with us until he need some peace and quiet and then he would return home. He was a huge help for my mother and kept all of us kids occupied. He loved to sit on the beach and keep an eye on us when were were swimming.

When I was seven our family camping trip was an exploration of the lower peninsula or the Mitten! We camped in several locations along the way including a stop in Tawas, Rogers City, Mackinaw and Orchard Beach as we rounded the upper part of the lower peninsula before making our way back to Romeo where we lived.

When I was eight years old, our camping trip was in the upper peninsula which included a trip to the Soo Locks. Today when you go to the Soo Locks you can time your visit to be there when you are certain that a freighter is traversing thru the locks. Visit www.saultstemarie.com/finding-freightors-sault-ste-marie-mi or Marinetraffic.com. Marinetraffic has an app for your phone. But in 1963 you just took your chances and somehow we timed it just right

Not only did we see a ship go through the locks but it was a Norwegian ship headed northbound to Lake Superior. My Grandfather, who was a gentle, quiet, reserved man, became very excited. Grandpa Anderson had arrived in Michigan from Norway fifty nine years ago in 1904 and never had an opportunity to return to his homeland. Until this day I had never heard my Grandfather raise his voice much above a whisper. My Grandfather yelled out a greeting to a sailor on deck in a language I had never heard him speak. This loud outburst from such a quiet man was a happy lively greeting. I was startled and surprised! I walked with him the full length of the lock as the ship navigated thru it. For the next twenty minutes or so, Grandpa and the young sailor yelled back and forth. My grandfather showed me a full range of emotions from laughter, dismay, surprise and eventually several tears which he quickly wiped away all the while having what appeared to be a eager, informative conversation with this sailor. I was so excited to hear him speak, I took in every thing he said but did not understanding a word. I could not wait for him to be done talking so I could ask him what they said.

Eventually the water level had risen which brought the ship to the correct height in the lock for entering Lake Superior, the horn blew, the gates began to open and the freighter began to leave the lock. As it sailed away, Grandpa and his new sailor friend waved…said their “goodbyes” and it was all over. I was so excite, I said, “Grandpa, Grandpa what did he say?” He looked down at me with his gentle smile and said in his calm reserved voice, “Oh nothing child”. “Wait, what do you mean nothing?” I implored. “You just talked to him for the whole time that we have been walking, he had to say something?”, I asked. He said, “its OK child, it was nothing!” I never heard him speak his native language again.

I have often thought of that day with my Grandfather. Was the conversation something that an eight year old should not heard? I just can not imaging my always gentle Grandfather having that kind of conversation. You know “the mouth of a sailor” type because after all he was a sailor for many years when he first arrived in America. Or after 59 years of not using his native language, did he struggle to have a conversation with the sailor on deck. Did he no longer understand everything that had been said. I never sensed frustrated, only excitement so I don’t think that is it either.

My Grandfather has been gone a long time but my memories of that day are vivid and very special. That day, I heard him speak in his native language. In our lives there are many events which will establish a permanent place in our hearts. A memory you will always cherish, that will always be special to you. This is one that my Grandfather and I share forever. Never underestimate the impact that you can have on another person. Take advantage of making these seemly small and insignificant events a lasting memory for those around you, those that you care about, be they family or friends.

Love you Grandpa!

Jan

There is no other person in my life that fits the phrase more than my Dad! Harold Smith was indeed quite the character. I remember being a little girl riding in the car with my Dad and he would wildly start honking the horn when he saw birds lined up on an electric wire. HONK, HONK, HONK and the birds would all fly away. He would smile and laugh as he watched the flock bursting into the sky before circling back to land on the wire….as if to say ” what the heck?” . He got the biggest kick out of it.

When he saw cows standing along the fence, he would honk and wave at them as if they were long, lost family. I remember asking him one time who he was waving at when I was small. “Mr Ludkey’s cows!” he replied. As we drove along in route to ANYWHERE, it was often time to sing a silly song. Row, Row Row your boat and 100 bottles of Pop on the wall…(no beer in our house) were two of his favorites. We thought all kids sang in the car with their Dad.

My Dad was known to follow fire trucks….he learned that from his Dad who also did it. He followed safely behind but he thought he “needed” to know where the fire was. My Mother used to scold him for it. I learned as a teenage that when he was seven or eight year old he was playing with matches in the field behind his house and he started the field on fire. My Grandma told me that story. He was a preachers kid and you know what they say about that! As a young adult, I was told, that just after he got his drivers license, he drove his Dad’s new car out on frozen Lake St. Clair so he could “do donuts” on the ice. Thanks goodness it was frozen solid! He got his drivers license taken away for a bit!

He loved to disobey signs….if the road said unimproved…he had to find out what was wrong with it. He loved a good logging trail or a garbage pit road. You never knew what kind of animals you would find; bear, deer, elk, porcupines…you just never knew.

When they were first developing Algonac State park, my father decided to drive around a road close sign and see what the park was going to be like. It was a Sunday afternoon and we were on our way home from visiting Grandparents in Marine City. So he went around the barrier. “It will be OK, there is no one around.” , he told my mother. “We will just see what it’s like! “. He got our station wagon full of six kids (two of which were toddlers in diapers) stuck in sand up to the axles. He hiked out and got a tow truck but it took over an hour to find one. In the meantime, it was hot, it rained, became humid and the mosquitoes swarmed us so bad we had to close all the windows. There we sat in the closed station wagon waiting for him to return.

In the mean my two year old brother pooped his pants and we I spent the rest of the time trying to not gag. And the older kids, myself included, complained loudly. My poor mother was beside herself when my Dad arrived back at the car with the Tow Truck. I heard the driver scold him for taking his family back there. The Tow truck guy pulled us out and we were back on the road again but not before Mom did a diaper change on my youngest brother.

My Dad and his friends from church wrer in charge of the Methodist Youth Fellowship meeting on Sunday evenings. They came up with the goofiest games….Like passing a life saver from person to another person while on a tooth pick! That was so embarrassing to a preteen!

I do not remember when my Dad started our birthday song tradition. It seems like we have just done it for ever. He would begin the birthday song out normally in his best singing voice but as it continued he got more and more off key. My Mother would beg him to sing nicely and that made it all the worse. It wasn’t too long when all of the kids got into the act too. I remember his mother (Grandma Smith) just smiling when he got started. We sing off key in restaurants, on trains, in churches, and at other peoples’ homes….anywhere that we are celebrating a birthday we sing the “Smith version” of the Birthday song.

My mother always sheepishly tried to sing nicely while we belted out our most outlandish version of the song. For her eightieth birthday party at our church in 2008…we sang to her nicely with the crowd who had gathered…but then we broke into Dad’s version of the Birthday song and she finally joined in. The rest of the party gathers were caught a bit off guard by our performance but they all seemed to enjoy it as we “Smiths” all carried on our tradition. My Mother died the following year.

My Father has been gone twenty four years now but we still honor him with his birthday song for every birthday celebration. We have learned that there are other family members and friends who have taken up the same tradition.

My Father was indeed…quite the character! Love you Dad! Miss you Dad!

Happy Hunting,

Jan

Charles Densmore was my Great Grandfather. Charles was sexton for the Woodlawn Cemetery in Marine City, Michigan for 18 years. I believe that I have acquired my love for cemeteries from from him. I have a hard time picking one favorite cemetery. I love them all.

When I was a little girl, I often visited our local rural cemetery in Washington, Michigan. As you can see from the photos, there are now houses built all around it but when I was a girl it was surrounded by farm fields. It was located just down the road from my house on 29 Mile Road and our road was still a gravel road. You would see cows or sheep grazing in the nearby fields with an occasional horse tossed in the mix. It was a peaceful place. I did not know anyone who was buried there. I knew it was an old cemetery because when you looked at the tombstones the years began with 17XX and 18xx and I was living in 1964. I was fascinated by it.

I can still recall riding my bike down the gravel road as fast as I could. I would ride up the sloping entrance of the cemetery into the center of the graveyard, jumping off my bike and dropping it in the middle of the grass.

For the next 30 minutes or so I would wander the cemetery reading the names and dates on the gravestones. In my mind I would create thrilling stories about these people and their lives. There was a Frost Family buried in the cemetery and I was sure that they could all write poetry like their famous relative, Robert Frost.

When I found a child, they would become my playmate. One day we might play marbles and the next it might be tag or hide and seek, hiding behind the tombstones.

A young woman would transform into a mother or a local farmer’s wife helping to milk cows, gathering eggs in her apron or hauling water to the kitchen.

When I saw a military stone, I would imagine soldiers in their uniforms marching off to war and fighting in battles. Old men became like Grandpas letting you sit on their lap while they tell you about the old days, the really old days….

Older woman became Grandmas that let you help make cookies and pies and a little mess once in a while. I wish I had written some of the stories down now.

I came from a fairly large family and this was something I always did when I was alone. It was not a conscious thing as I recall but in a large busy family each member needs some alone time and this was mine.

Sometimes it was fun to lie in the grass and watch the clouds as they formed, dissolved and reformed. I would lay there with my friends who had been laying there long before me and have remained there long after I was gone.

Think that I am strange if you like but there are very few places on earth that I like better than a cemetery!

Happy Hunting,

Jan

This time of the year it always seems that life gets in the way…and this September is no different. I will catch up with my blogs when …..

the garden is done..

the peaches are canned….

A ferry ride across Lake Michigan…..

A visit with friends….

A 60th Anniversary with family …..

This time of the year is busy and wonderful… Genealogy will take a back seat….I’ll get caught up…one day soon!

Happy Hunting…

Jan

LARGE…Some weeks I really struggle with what to write…right now my garden which isn’t LARGE is producing abundantly so I am frantically canning and freezing. Not complaining because this is great problem to have. My writing, family history research and my quilting all take a back seat at this time of the year!

Now that I have stalled enough…..LARGE …. LARGE families…. LARGE people … LARGE farms… LARGE houses

Large Families

My mother was one of eight children. To me, especially today, that is a large family. In her German Ancestry lines, there were lots of large families.

Albert Hainer and Catharine Vollick had twelve children, of the twelve kids, nine children all had large families:

Dorothy Hainer and David Putman had ten children.

Henry Hainer and Nancy Schram had ten children.

John Hainer and Nancy Bowman had nine children.

Isaac Hainer and Mary Magdelena May had twelve children.

Hannah Hainer and John Swackhammer had nine children.

Sarah Hainer and John Brandt had six children.

James Hainer and Catherine had eleven children.

Deborah Hainer and Mathias Fisher had seven children.

Catharine Hainer and Jonas Larraway had seven children.

(As I was proofreading this I added up all of Albert and Catharine Hainer’s grandchildren… they had 81 Grandchildren!)

Large People…

My Great Grandmother, Cora Crites Smith was a large lady. Not only was she large “around” but she was pretty tall for a woman too. And as you can see from this photo, my Grandfather Everett who is standing behind Alvin, her husband who is seated next to Cora, took after his mother. So you see, we come from ‘LARGE” stock. (I am not making excuses here but I do have a pound or two to lose.)

A Large Farm…

James and Susannah (Overly) are my Smith Ancestors. They are my road block, my brick wall. Well James Smith is. There are so many James Smiths that I am unable to verify his parents but that is a topic for a different blog. James and Susannah had a large family. Fourteen children to be exact. They settled in the Fort Wayne area in 1845 or 1846 after leaving Darke County, Ohio. Two of their oldest Smith boys, William and Branson and some of their Davis cousins left the rural Fort Wayne area and moved to Madison County, Indiana, and settled in Pendleton sometime in the mid to late 1850’s. They married Kinnamon sisters, Hannah and Emily.…. the Smith Farm began. It has been operated by the same Smith family for seven generations. Today, they farm 3000 acres of wheat and livestock. They raise cattle and sell meat butchered in their own processing plant. They have a large pumpkin patch and a Farm Market where they have a fall festival every October. Please visit their website at http://www.smithfamilyfarms.com/Welcome.html.

Large House

My Mother and Dad had six kids and in the 1950’s and 1960’s that was a pretty large family. Until I was 12 years old we lived in a three bedroom ranch in Romeo, Michigan. It was a tight fit but it was all we knew. I remember fighting with my sisters about who was the messiest and having to clean our room. It was very difficult to have four girls all in the same room. My two older sisters were teenagers, I was a preteen and my younger sister was five years younger than me. We often blamed the mess on my youngest sister! We moved to Imlay City, Michigan in the summer of 1968. My father had bought a big house.

A big OLD house that used to be a doctor’s office….. I know, you thought I was going to say this big fancy house, didn’t you? Nope it was a monster of an old house. My Dad was the original “do-it-yourself” king. And he had three teenage girls that he loved to put to work. So we had to disconnect the left side of the house which was the doctors office from the right side of the house which would be our living quarters. (And that story would be good for a different blog!) Eventually the old doctors office became a nice size apartment and Mom and Dad had a good size bedroom suite downstairs. The great thing about this house was that all four girls had their own rooms. My younger brothers who you see standing on the porch several years after we moved in were toddlers at the time of the move. They loved sharing a room!

So I guess I covered LARGE. What do you think?

Enjoy the hunt,

Jan

#52Ancestors

This weeks prompt is “The Old Country”. Alot of my genealogy goes back to early Colonial times here in the United States. According to my DNA, I am 66 % from England, Wales, Northwestern Europe which includes Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark. I am 34 % Scandinavian with 32 % Norwegian and 1% each of Sweden and Finland.

As a family we have done our best to stay in contact with our family in Norway thru the years. My Grandfather received post cards and letters from his family after he immigrated to America. He kept them in the top draw of his dresser wrapped in a piece of twine. They were well worn when my mother found them after he died. She remember them. She remembered him reading them. She loved the stamps so he cut them all out and gave them to her. She was flooded with memories when she saw the tattered letters. She also realized that is had been sometime since we had gotten any word from our family in .

Mom set out to make sure that she contacted her uncle, Haakon to tell him of his brother’s death. She wrote a letter to him and mailed it off to his last known address and hoped for the best. Meanwhile in Norway, Haakon had died a few months before and Anna, his wife, was trying valiantly to reach Andrew, my grandfather. Eventually after receiving her letter back, she tried to write my mother. Mom received the letter from Anna soon after Mom mailed the letter to Haakon.

This exchange pushed open the door of communication once again for our family. Our cousin, Bjarne and his wife came to visit my parents in 1972 in Michigan. My parents went to Norway to visit them in 1973. Mom took the letters,which were written in Norwegian, with the hope that someone would translate them for her. She wanted in the worst way to know what they said.

She met all her cousins and was so happy and felt blessed to have gotten to know them all. She left the letters with Tormod, the husband of her cousin Aslaug, he promised to translate them for her. Over the course of several years, Mom received the letters and translations a couple at a time even after Aslaug died of cancer in 1974 at the age of 44 years old. Mom would be so excited when she got mail from Norway.

Anna died in 1983 and once again we lost contact with our Norwegian family for a time. When I took up this family history mission in 1997, I knew we needed to find them again. Around the year 2000, I was using the old Rootsweb Message Boards. I went out to a Norwegian message board and posted an inquiry. You see “we” are “Andersen’s”! Andersen is as common in Norway as “Smith” is in America so we already had a lot in common. My Great Uncle Haakon decided to changed his surname . When he became a missionary and there were many Haakon Andersen’s in the Norwegian Mission organization. He decided to use his middle name, Ingwardo as his surname. He made my life so much easier! I posted that I was looking for Ingwardo ‘s in Norway and within 24 hours I had addresses and emails for three Ingwardos. My first contact was with Olaf, Bjarne’s older brother. We corresponded for several years. He sent me pictures and emails every few weeks. He told me that Bjarne had divorce and married a Danish woman and that they lived in Copenhagen. He was not interested in Genealogy or family history but it was nice to hear from him regularly. I thought that he would tell other family members that we were once again communicating. Late in 2003, I got an email from him. He said that he was going to the hospital and that he would email me in a few weeks.

I never heard from him again. I sent several emails and they were not returned so I assumed he was just not well enough to using his computer. After six months of silence I decided that something must have happened. So now it is spring of 2004. I once again went to the message boards and this time I went to a Copenhagen, Denmark board. I posted that I was looking for Bjarne Ingwardo. Once again within 24 hours, I had an address.

I wrote Bjarne a letter and I mailed it on the Friday of Memorial Weekend in 2004. I included my address and phone number and re-introduced myself. I told him I was hoping to re-establish contact with our Norwegian family members. I indicated that I had been talking regularly with Olaf through email and that it suddenly stopped.

On Memorial Day, the phone rang and it was Bjarne. He told me that Olaf never mentioned that we were communication thru email. He did inform me that he had died in 2003 after having surgery. We talked for over an hour and before we hung up, he was making plans to visit us in mid June, a mere three weeks away.

He and Ingrid came to Chicago, where I lived, on the Thursday before Father’s Day. Their visit lasted about sixteen days. After a couple of days in Chicago, I drove them to Michigan where they visited the rest of the family. They spent several days with each of us and my mother. I returned to my brother’s house at the end of their visit to retrieve them and get them back to the airport in time for their return flight home. We had a wonderful visit full of great memories.

My Mother died in 2009. After her estate was settled in early 2010, her six children decided that we should visit Bjarne in Copenhagen and hopefully his homeland and our Grandfather’s Norway. We called him to make arrangements and they were thrilled that we all wanted to visit. We set the trip up for September of 2010. He and Ingrid decided to once again visit us during the summer of 2010.

We had the opportunity to very briefly visit Oslo, Norway and meet several of our cousins before returning to Denmark for the rest of our visit.

In 2017, we were troubled by medical issues that Bjarne was having. My sister, Sharon started to investigate flights to Denmark in January and we discussed the possibility of traveling there to see him. I told her that if I was going to Denmark than I would also going to Norway and it had to be for a few days. I started investigating how we could make that happen. So we contacted Bjarne’s daughter, Rita, to see if we could visit her. With in a few short weeks the trip quickly became a reality. My sister told her son what we were planning to do and he wanted to come too. By the end of February, we were on a train headed to Chicago to catch a flight to Copenhagen.

It was an extra special trip for all of us! We spent the first 4 days in Denmark before going to Norway. We spent the next 3 days in Norway, with Bjarne’s daughter Rita and a couple of days on our own in Oslo. On our second day in Norway we rented a car and drove to Tjome, the island where my Grandfather and many generations of our family lived before him.

I have through my research connecting with several distant relatives from Tjome. Inger Zainer is one of them and she arranged for us, Sharon, Zach, Rita and myself, to visit the home where my Grandfather lived. We were graciously invited inside. The energy was electric and moving as we entered the home. Inger invited an long time Tjome residence, who knew our Great Grandfather Hans, to come and answer any questions that we might have about him and his sons. It was a truly amazing afternoon.

Sadly, both Rita and Bjarne, have died. Rita died suddenly in 2018 and Bjarne died this spring. We did not know how important that 2017 trip would become to us.

With the use of technology today we have managed to remain in contact with our Norwegian relatives. Now one hundred and sixteen years after my Grandfather left Norway, I send texts thru Facebook to Olaf’s granddaughter, to Bjarne’s wife, to Rita’s children and Bjarne’s sons and their children. It is truly amazing that we can today stay in touch with those family member who remain in the “Old Country” .

Happy Hunting,

Jan

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