Slekt og Slikt

Not to much time to do genealogy or blogging these days, but I need some rest, and what is more relaxing than doing some research!

I have decided to give Karen as many norwegian relatives as possible, and then let her do more research on them herself later when I get to Florida, and will be able to show her how fantastic our churchrecords and other resources on our digitalarkivet.no are.

Often when doing research in Oslo, I use Familysearch.org – lots of birth/christenings and marriage records are indexed, and give me a hint on where I should look for a marriage, for children of a couple, and – most important, which church they attended at the time. In Norway we had, and still have, the system of State church, and for a genealogist, that makes it easier in a way.

At first I did not find Karens great great grandmother Elisabeth Helberg in the 1801 census. But, after finding her mothers maiden name, and playing around for a while, I found them, in Vognmandsgaden in Kristiania. (click on the image to read)

Then I did a parent search on Familysearch:

To do a simple parent search, with no other information, I got all the indexes where parents with these names are mentioned, and – look what I got:

The girl no. 2 in the list above, Elisabeth, is Karens gr.gr.grandmother. She was born in december 1799, and christened in Oslo Domkirke. When I found the indexed record, it took me about 1 minute to find the original record in the churchrecords.

The naming rules in Norway at the time was «patronymic», and the indexer who did this index for Oslo Domkirke did it right for the traditions, but, in the cities, they often used a family name. This family used the name Helberg. No wonder it was a bit hard to find this family in the 1801 census.

So, Karen, I have now 23 persons in my database on your family, looking forward to send it all, but you have to wait some more days before I can do that!

In «The Genealogy Society of Norway – DIS» (Norwegian name: «DIS-Norge») we have a wonderful service for our members, called DIStreff.

The norwegian word «treff/e» can translate into several meanings:
1. Å treffe = (to) meet
2. Et treff = (one) hit
3. Å treffe= (to) hit
4. Et treff = (one) meeting

All our members are welcome to send their gedcom file to the DIStreff-contact in their region. The gedcom file will be merged into the existing database, and the members gets an e-mail with information in return. Including a list of members working with the same persons/farms/areas!

I use this service to find my own family, but also to help others to find their norwegian relatives.

When working on Karens family, I searched for all of the names I had found, and especially Helberg made a hit! So nowI canl send an e-mail to the person that donated his gedcom file into the database, to see if he knows if Karen has any living relatives in Norway!

After working a few hours on Karens norwegian ancestry, I have found some interesting familynames.

1. Helberg/Heltberg
2. Sternberg
3. Blytt/Blyth
4. Hesselberg

The most exciting thing about the research, is that I have found at least 3 generations in Oslo/Kristiania, and that is not to common. Oslo/Kristiania had a huge immigration from the countryside during the 1800s.

I have found churchrecords that confirm this:
Generation 1. Albert Martin Heltberg Thoresen born 1852 in Kristiania – his father:
Generation 2. Edvard Theodor Thoresen born 1826 in Kristiania – his mother:
Generation 3. Elisabeth Helberg born 1799 in Kristiania – her mother
Generatoin 4. Martha Margaretha Sternberg born 1764 in Kristiania

I am looking forward to send Karen all my findings, I think she will be really excited about this. Some details might turn out to be sort of a shock, but I am sure she can handle that!

This is from Oslo Domkirke/Vår Frelser church book Ministerialbok nr. 4 (1743-1786), birth/christening in 1764, Martha Margarethas’ christening September 7th 1764 in Oslo Domkirke. Her parents Jochum Caspar Sternberg and Gunhild … help anyone?

Source information: Oslo county, Oslo Domkirke / Vår Frelsers menighet, Parish register (official) nr. 4 (1743-1786), Birth and baptism records 1764, page 382-383.
Permanent pagelink: http://www.arkivverket.no/URN:kb_read?idx_kildeid=7233&idx_id=7233&uid=ny&idx_side=-188
Permanent imagelink: http://www.arkivverket.no/URN:NBN:no-a1450-kb20061005010365.jpg

This weekend I got an e-mail from Sue, the president of Englewood Genealogical Society. She told about a member of the neighbourhood genealogy group, Karen, with norwegian ancestors! Karen needed help to find more information on her grandparents.

After what Karen knew, her grandparents came to the US in 1892. They died in Chicago, Illinois . She had also heard that her grandparents were born in «Kristiania», and she had the dates, and she had the date of their marriage, also in Kristiania. She also had heard that they emigrated the day after their wedding. This helped a lot when I started the research.

First I did a search in the 1900-census on Ancestry.com. I got a hit in the first search for Albert Thoresen
The family lived in Ohio street, and 4 children had been born since they came to the US, Harry in New York in April 1893, Ruth born in Illinois in May 1895, Leif in Illinois in May 1897 and Dagny in in July 1899. The immigration year was 1892.

I searched the emigrant-protocols online (digitalarkivet.no) for Oslo (Kristiania) and it was an easy task to find them there, they left for New York in July 1892,
and they were on the ships-list also, arriving New York on the ship Norge, July 22 1892.

I started the research for the birth/christening records, and found them within minutes. Karen had the dates of birth and the marriage, but she didn’t know what church. I used Familysearch.org to see if they were christened in any of the churches they had in their databases. I was lucky. I found the christenings, the grandfather Albert in Vår Frelser/Oslo Domkirke (Our Saviours Church) and the grandmother in Grønland Church.

The image below shows what I got when I asked for all the christening records in Oslo between 1851-1863 . It would have been a rather easy task to go through the few churchrecords without Familysearch, since the number of churches was 9, not to bad when you know date of birth.

I did the same with the marriage record, searched on Familysearch, found them in Trefoldighetskirken (Trinity Church). This record also gave the year of confirmation. This to confirm their parents and birthplaces.

I also found that grandfather had many siblings, and her grandmother had one half-sister. All of them found in the norwegian censuses. I have not sent the information to Karen yet, so I decided not to include all the main findings in this blog.

Around 1900 we had many churches in Kristiania (Oslo). The 1900-census in Oslo, don’t include name of parrish/church. But, the tool «Samlagsafstemningen in Kristiania af 1899» (don’t make me translate) – gives what street for which school-district/parrish. Just remember that this is correct only in the period of 1899 – because many churches were built in that period.