Genealogy Jottings

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As a child, I loved reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s famous Little House series. Now I have discovered that my own family had some of the same experiences hers did. Wilder’s book Little House On the Prairie is set in southeastern Kansas, and Laura’s younger sister Carrie Wilder was born near Independence in 1870. I have learned from the census that my Reed family resided not far away from them near Erie, Kansas at the same time. My great-aunt Anna Reed McDavitt was born there, also in 1870. The Reeds left the area soon after, as did the Ingalls family. Perhaps these moves had something to do with uncertain titles to the land. The Osage tribe had just ceded much of the territory and were relocating to Oklahoma. Settlers were pouring in and staking tenuous preemptive claims. I now need to take a look at the Kansas land records to see if the Reed family appears there.

Norway did not require family surnames until the 1920’s. Before that, most Norwegians used a patronymic system where each person went by his own name and his father’s first name plus the suffix sen for men and datter for women. Women did not take their husband’s name when they married. Hence, my great-grandmother was always Sofie Marie Sivertsdatter in Norway. Norwegian immigrants to America had to choose a surname when they came here. Often they used the father’s patronymic for everyone. Many also chose the name of their farm in Norway. In Tony’s family, they began with the patronymic Jorgensen but later switched to the farm name Hjelmstad. In my family, all went by the Bentsen or Bentzen name. I have not yet found a reason for this because in Norway my male ancestors lived on the Bervik farm and were known as Ole Lorentsen and Lorents Andersen. I have not yet located anyone named Bent in our family tree. It is a small mystery I would like to solve.

Over the years, many states took a census in mid-decade. These often contain different information than the federal census does, and I have looked at those for Nebraska and North Dakota in the past to flesh out a family. This week it finally dawned on me to look for that rascal Samuel Reed on the 1885 Kansas census which is available on Ancestry. I knew my great-aunt was born in Harper County in 1884, but the family moved on to Missouri some time after that. I got lucky! They were in Edwards County, KS in 1885! This census is wonderful because it includes birthplace (not just the state but also town/county) and information on Civil War service. The only problem with the data for Sam Reed is that his war service information conflicts with what is reported on the 1890 Missouri schedule of surviving veterans. The Kansas census says he served on pontoons in Illinois; the 1890 schedule states he served in the Kansas infantry. He is not on the Kansas roster, however, so now I can follow up on this Illinois pontoon clue. A state census can really move research along if one remembers to look there.

My great-grandfather Samuel H. Reed eludes me because he had a fairly common name, married more than once, and moved around a lot. I still do not have a complete census survey for him. I came one step closer recently when I finally found his record on the 1870 U.S. census. I knew that the prior year he had married Nancy Dudley in Illinois, and the first child, Anna, was born in Kansas in August 1870. Yet for years I could not locate Samuel and his bride in 1870 in Illinois, Kansas, or anywhere else. Finally, using some creative search techniques on Ancestry, I found them in Neosho County, Kansas. The script for their surname was a little hard to make out, and it had been indexed as “Beed”, not “Reed”. With modern technology, I could search for Samuel with just a first name and a birth year, bypassing the mis-indexed surname. Gotcha, Sam!

Last year I spent my research time on my Norwegian family. At the end of the year, I had enough information to do a nice biographical sketch of my great-grandparents, Sofie and Ole Bentsen. I have done similar sketches of other great-grandparents in previous years, including Laura Riddle and Anna Petronellia Sherman. Among those I still need to do is my paternal great-grandfather, Samuel Harvey Reed. He had what the cousins call “that Reed wanderlust”, and he traveled around a lot. I have many gaps in his timeline, and his Civil War service remains undocumented. Even his name is a puzzle because he was the oldest son yet not named for any family member that I can identify. Yet both he and a cousin were named “Samuel Harvey”, so who was the original Samuel Harvey? This year I plan to focus my research efforts on my Samuel and the Reed line. This guy will be tough!

This Christmas I received one of the best gifts a genealogist could get–a membership to Ancestry.com for a year. Thank you, Tony! In the past, I have saved my Ancestry research questions for occasional trips to the public library with the laptop to use their subscription. Because I had no printer for the laptop, I had to save all the images I wanted and then take time later to retrieve and print them at home. A cumbersome procedure at best. Now I can do all at once without leaving my office! The only downside I can see is that I will spend too much time next year on research  and not enough on updating the database or writing articles. Still, I do love the research side of genealogy the most, so maybe  it would not be so bad to give in to the temptation for 2011.

The Norway Digital Archives has now posted the 1910 census online at http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/cgi-win/WebFront.exe?slag=vis&tekst=meldingar&spraak=e. Yesterday I looked at the new site. Although our forebears had all left Norway by 1910, parents and siblings remained behind. Locating people on any Norway census presents challenges due to the uncertainty of whether they used patronymics or surnames, so one must sometimes try several variations of possible names. It helps if a family member has an unusual name. The 1910 census also has an advanced search feature that enables you to limit results by birth year, etc. Using these strategies, I found the people I sought without too much difficulty. The family tree has grown again.

We genealogists try to use family gatherings like Thanksgiving as an opportunity to glean family information from relatives. This year I hardly had time for that because I spent Thanksgiving weekend readying my father’s house for sale. Still, I did find a way to use my time productively for genealogy as well as disposing of furniture and household items. I found family correspondence, newspaper clippings, and scrapbooks stored in boxes and cupboards all over the house. These genealogical treasures, which I did not know existed, will take me a long time to sort and archive. Who knows what family history gem I will discover in the process?

Every year at this time, I start getting genealogical gifts ready for Christmas giving. Relatives like to learn about the family, but they do not really want to read family group sheets or pedigree charts. Instead, I select an ancestor or two and then gather information and photos about the person. I write a character sketch and send it along with copies of pertinent pictures and documents. This synthesis of information helps me focus future research while providing a unique and entertaining gift for the recipients. This year, of course, my subjects will be my Bentsen family, Norwegian immigrants whom I have researched all year.

Researchers at my German genealogy club have told me to install Google Translator if I want to look at foreign websites. I finally did, and it came in handy this week. When I did a search for one of Tony’s Norwegian family members, Lars Haagensen/Haakensen, his name came up on a Norwegian genealogy discussion page. With Google Translator, I could read the information in English. Although the translation was imperfect, I learned when and where his family immigrated. Thanks to Google Translator, I now  have several good clues for pursuing additional research on this family.