{"id":1087,"date":"2016-07-24T18:50:45","date_gmt":"2016-07-25T01:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/?p=1087"},"modified":"2016-07-24T18:54:08","modified_gmt":"2016-07-25T01:54:08","slug":"52-ancestors-in-52-weeks-no-23-lorenz-nikolai-bentsen-1854-1919","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/?p=1087","title":{"rendered":"52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, no. 23\u2014Lorenz Nikolai Bentsen, 1854 – 1919"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the late nineteenth century, the Bentsen clan lived in B\u00f8 Municipality on the southern coast of the Vester\u00e5len District of Nordland, Norway. There, on the Fjaervold farm on the island of Lang\u00f8ya, Lorenz Nikolai M\u00f6ller Andersen was born on 5 July 1854 to Anders Bentsen and Anne Larsdatter. To shorten up this long name, he usually went by “Nick”.
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When he was three months old, Nick was baptized into the Lutheran Church of Norway at the B\u00f8 parish church built in 1824. The pastor baptized several babies that day, the 16th<\/sup> Sunday after Trinity.
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B\u00f8 kirke<\/p>\n

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Nick’s legal name has created some confusion. Our American family records do not match the official Norwegian records recording his name. Nick’s descendants remembered him as “Nikolai Lorenz” rather than “Lorenz Nikolai M\u00f6ller”. Perhaps they assumed his first name was Nikolai because he went by the nickname “Nick”. They may never have known he had a second middle name because he seems to have dropped it after he came to America.
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The descendants also knew him by the “Bentsen” surname he adopted when he immigrated to the United States. In Norway he had used the patronymic name, “Andersen”, derived from his father’s first name, rather than a surname. Norway did not require surnames until the 1920’s, long after Nick had left.
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When Nick was born, his family consisted of his parents and an older sister, Kristine Andrea Andersdatter, born in 1851. An unnamed younger brother was stillborn in February 1857.
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According to the Norwegian records, Nick’s father was Anders Bentsen (1823-1857). This lineage differs from what Nick’s granddaughter, Signe Bentsen Fleming, has reported in her book Bentsen-Sivertsen History 1800-1988<\/em>. She states that Nick’s father was a man named Peter Kolbentsen.
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Which is correct? Every Norwegian record lists Nick’s patronymic name as “Andersen”, not “Petersen”, indicating that his father’s name was in fact Anders, not Peter. Nick’s baptism, confirmation, and marriage records all report his father’s name as Anders Bentsen. Furthermore, both Nick and his son Ole took the surname Bentsen, not Kolbentsen, when they immigrated to the United States. Indeed, Ole and his sisters had used the Bentsen surname name occasionally even in Norway. It seems likely that Nick’s father was in fact Anders Bentsen. More research remains to be done on the identity of Peter Kolbentsen and his relationship to the family.
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Nick’s father passed away in 1857 when the boy was just three years old. By 1865 Nick and his sister Kristine were living on different farms as foster children. “Necolai Andersen”, age 12, lived that year on the Svin\u00f8en farm owned by Nils Holgersen. Nick was listed in the household of Anders Gr\u00e6gusen (who had been one of his baptism sponsors) and his wife Andrea Krane.
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A couple of years later on 30 May 1869 Nick was confirmed in the same B\u00f8 parish where he had been baptized. He was 14 years old. The record indicates he had received his smallpox vaccination four years earlier, in 1861.
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On 11 August 1873, again in B\u00f8 parish, Nick married Karen Marie Johansdatter, daughter of Johan Larsen (1824-1876) and Sara Andrine M\u00f6llersdatter (1814-1880). Nick was 19 and Karen was twenty-two.
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The couple lived on the remote island fishing village of Skj\u00e6ringstad in Vester\u00e5len, Nordland. Over the next several years they moved around to Svin\u00f8ya and ultimately to Hadsel. Nick engaged in the treacherous fishing industry in addition to his farming work
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Sk\u00e6ringstad
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During this time, they had at least four children:
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