Genealogy Jottings

Author Archive

Given a choice, which do most genealogists prefer? Researching their ancestors or digesting and publishing their findings? This week the Denver Family History Center’s Barb Price, when speaking to our Germanic Genealogical Society, mentioned how she loves the thrill of the research hunt but not so much the grind of creating reports. I find the same to be true of myself. I went years without writing any more than anecdotes on my ancestors. Then I realized that I really wanted to leave behind more than a collection of family group sheets. I want to preserve real family history. To keep myself on a writing schedule, I began writing character sketches and sharing them with family members at Christmas time. Today I started on this year’s subject–Ole and Sofie Bentsen who immigrated from Norway in 1904 and 1905. Sometime next month I will send out my composition on them together with photos and copies of documents. Contact me if you are related to these people and want one of these packages.

Last weekend I spent a day attending the semi-annual seminar put on by the local chapter of Palatines to America. Shirley Riemer, author of The German Research Companion, spoke on German research strategies, including use of an Ortissippenbuch (German Town Genealogy). She packed her handouts with valuable information, and I came home with some ideas for further research. A wonderful feature of these seminars is the German lunch and dinner they offer. Some people do not even care what they will learn at the seminar; they go for the food.

When internet use first became widespread, genealogists began using online message boards to locate others who might be researching the same family lines. I have followed the Genforum on genealogy.com and the message boards on Rootsweb for a long time. Although traffic on these has slowed in recent years, enough people still log in to make the effort of checking them worthwhile. I have found relatives in Canada, Germany, and all over the United States, either through messages I have posted or by responding to those of others. You can join two different types of boards–surname or locale. Recently I learned that a couple of my relatives early in the 20th century had married into the Susag family (no message board for that name), so I posted a query on a board for Griggs Co., ND (where the marriages took place). A couple of days later, a Susag researcher sent me a Susag family tree that included my relatives!

An ancestor’s will makes good reading and provides insight to his family structure and circumstances. A couple of weeks ago I felt letdown upon learning that none of my Norwegian family in Montana left wills or probated estates. I had felt certain that since they owned land, I would find estate settlements for them. But the County Clerk in Sheridan County could not find a file for either Ole Bentsen or his father Lorents. These men must have disposed of most of their property before they died without a need for a formal probate proceeding. Convenient for the family, but disappointing for me.

An article in Dick Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter touched a nerve with me today. He talked about some counties in Maine that charge exorbitant fees for digital copies of public records. You can read the story at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/10/maine-lawsuit-tests-limits-on-county-fees-for-records.html. We should all object to this new trend of using fees to create government profit centers. Isn’t government supposed to be non-profit?

One of my Education professors once commented on how difficult it is to impress upon high school students that the grades they earn are “forever” because they follow you for the rest of your life. This week as I looked at Norwegian church records, I found that high school grades are not the only ones with this longevity. The Lutheran church confirmation records in Norway list not only the adolescents names and other family information, but they also record a rating of each student’s knowledge of the catechism. Now, over 100 years later, we can see whether an individual scored Very Good, Good, or Not So Good. My family mostly scored “Good”, but Tony’s had several who achieved “Very Good”. Did they study harder, or was their minister an “easy grader”? And why is one of Tony’s family, Simon Hjelmstad, missing from the record? Did he fail the test altogether? I wonder whether any of these people realized at the time that their scores truly would be forever.

This month we began the process of moving my 83-year-old Dad out of his big ol’ house and in with us. As a friend and I were comparing notes about this process, we talked about what to do with all the heirlooms and mementos that one finds in a long-time family home. So many memories attach to the items stored away. She talked about her family’s hand-made quilts and I mentioned doilies that my grandmother had crocheted. My friend and I talked about the wisdom of labeling the special things–who owned it, when it was acquired, why it is meaningful. In my own family I find this to be so true, and not just for my children’s sake. My own younger sister does not know why some things should be kept rather than tossed. I need to get busy with the labeling!

Seasoned genealogy researchers always advise spending time early in your search seeking out cousins for family information. A couple of weeks ago, my mother’s cousin contacted me after seeing information I had posted on this website. We are now enjoying updating each other after our families lost touch with one another over 20 years ago. This is not the first time this has happened over the years, and I love to get these requests. The more people we have working, the faster the search moves ahead. Cousins often have relevant material (photos, correspondence, Bibles) that passed down through their line. Until you contact those distant cousins, you do not know what treasures you will find.

A lot of Norwegian jokes feature Ole and Lena, the stereotypical Norwegian immigrants. My family actually had siblings with these names, my great-grandfather Ole Bentsen and his sister Lina Bentsen Johannesen Torbergsen. Ole came to America in 1904, their parents came over in 1905, and Lina followed in 1909. The other child in the family, a sister named Riborg, had died at age 16 in Norway. Ole and his folks settled in northeastern Montana while Lina went to Seattle. I never met any of these people myself, but I wonder if they appreciated Ole and Lena jokes.

We switched internet providers recently, and during the transition period we were without high speed service for about 3 weeks. Boy did that affect my research! So many records are now online, and I really missed being able to just sit at the computer and go, go, go. So far this year I have been able to dig through Norway’s online archives, to search the BLM’s lists of recipients of government land, to look at U.S. census records, and to contact librarians all over the U.S. for obituaries, all from home. None of this has cost me dime! And then abruptly, I was at a research standstill until our new internet service was installed. Okay, I did use the time to clean up some stuff in the office, but that is not nearly as fun. Now I am back online and back in the archives with even faster internet service than I had before.