Relative in Norway born 1480 - tree needs help
Hi, I am working on a distant ancestor in Norway and because it is in the 1400s-1500s it is very difficult to know the correct data. But in this case there are two ancestors - Gunder Jonsen LZF8-Q68 and Gunder Jonsen G361-635. The have the same child which is my link to Gunder Jonsen. There has been a number of inputs into these lines but there are no sources. Some inputs by FamilySearch. One line ends at Gunder Jonsen's father and the other line goes back to 300AD. A huge difference. I'd Like to resolve this line if possible. Is there anyone with knowledge about this that can help?
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Until you have the expertise to really get into the sources regarding this family it is generally best to leave this sort of thing alone. There is so little documented about people that far back that it is really hard to sort out accurate information such as who the mother of a child really was. I did poke around a little bit, enough to see that there is some controversy about the family structure.
I did find a couple of links that you can get some useful information from with a bit of work in Google Translate:
--- https://www.geelmuyden-info.no/TNG/getperson.php?personID=I34453&tree=Geelmuyden
--- http://www.xn--familiertter-2jb.no/1074.html
--- https://www.geni.com/people/Gunder-Bringsv%C3%A6r/6000000002626238951
The first one states very strongly that the second one is wrong. The third one has a lot of the same sources as the first one but but I think some of the text passages from them are longer.
I'm not sure how old the works are that are quoted. You generally need to check up on new scholarship to see if anyone still believes what older researchers concluded.
The Norwegian Archive's website has a discussion board at: https://forum.arkivverket.no/forum/6-brukernes-eget-forum/ You may want to get a free account there and ask about this family. You can post questions in English.
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Thank you very much for your response. This is exactly what I needed. My Norweigan family has lived in Dybvåg for centuries and this will add to our knowledge about the people of this timeframe.
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Follow up question for Gordan Collett. After reading the information on Gunden Jonsen you provided, I have an appreciation for your comments. As a follow up who are the real sons of Stain Gunderssen's child - LH15-8JQ - Halvor Stiansson. The link I have makes no sense and I'd like to understand why? Thanks
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/LH15-8JQ
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Looking at the family of Halvor Stiansson, it really looks like the only thing anyone is doing is quoting the Øyestad and Dybvaag Bygdebok which is certainly all I would be able to do. A note on Halvor does give the references:
- Øyestad Bygdebok; FHL 948.28/O1 D2d pages Vol. 1 page 195, Vol. 2 page 343
- Dybvaag Gaards og Slektshistorie; FHL 948.28/D1 D2d page 75
The Øyestad book was published in 1981 and the Dybvaag book in 1965 so both are pretty recent. Generally these farm histories are pretty accurate. As far back as this family is, the authors would be basing their information on tax records, court records, and probate records. I've seen a few probate records from the early 1700s and find them impossible to read so all I can do is trust the research of the bygdebok authors.
You might want to use the FamilySearch lookup service ( https://www.familysearch.org/en/library/record-lookup-service ) and request a copy of those two pages and see if they have been transcribed correctly into Family Tree.
I'm not sure what link you are referring to. The Family Tree link you posted or something else? What is not making sense?
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Thanks for your comments. A follow up. I am looking at the book - Dypvåg : gårds- og slektshistorie. 1. My family has at least a 500 year history in Dypvåg and surrounding areas. This book is available from FamilySearch Catalog online. I'm looking at the book but not understanding how to research this book to find my ancestors. Can you give me some insights as to the use of this book and what I can expect to find in it. I've looked at the index and I understand it is arranged by farms, but I'm not seeing my ancestors. So hopefully you can give me some insights to it.
Thanks
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Have you worked with Bygdebok before? How is your Norwegian?
A couple of basic principles:
- Each author has his own style so you have to figure out how each author arranged things.
- These are community history first and family histories second. Generally, depending on the size of the work, one volume will cover the history, geology, and overall social history of the area and other volumes will cover specific farms.
- The families are arranged by farm ownership, and only indirectly by linage.
- In general, you don't start out by looking for your family but rather for the farm where some of your family lived.
- As with everything in genealogy, it is important to start with the most recent, easiest to work with information and work backwards. This means that you will be going through the bygdebok backwards and following where the family lines jump around the book.
As an example, I've gone into volume 2 of the Dypvåg book and picked a random farm, Østre Sandøya which is farm 15. It is on page 777 (image 20 on the microfilm). But I'm going to start on page 811 because there I "found" my pretend grandfather Bjørn Rangvald Valsgård after a couple of hours of searching through the pages for that farm because I knew that was where he was from:
This entry gives him an ahnentafel type code of h 11. I can see that the h means he is the eighth child in the family but I'm not sure how the 11 works quite yet, but it will probably become clear as I go. He is listed with his birth year (f for født), his marriage year (g for gift), his wife who also has her birth year and her father's name (the Ø. S. is an abbreviation for the farm we are on Østre Sandøya), and three children.
So now I have two lines to follow back. I need to find Bjørn's parents who will be at the top of this family and I can also search through this chapter until I find Ester listed with her family.
Going up the page I go through all of Bjørn's siblings and their families, then go to the bottom of the previous page and go up a bit farther to come to Bjørn's father who has a section heading for him. He is Ole Olsen Østre Sandøya and is labeled b 10. So this means he is the second child in his family and is back one generation, that is, 10.
Here Ole is listed again with birth year, his wife and information about her, then a paragraph for each child a-11 through i-11. Now we are into patronymics. Ole Olsen Østre Sandøya's father will be Ole and since this entry does not say this Ole came from somewhere else, then his father will also have the last name of Østre Sandøya and will be some-letter 9. We again have to go backwards in the book until we find b-10 Ole listed as a child under ?-9 Ole. He is actually on the previous page. You can see that b-10 Ole is listed just with his name and birth year because his full information will be where he is listed as head of household.
To go back to the above image, you can see that Ole's wife is listed as the daughter of Jens Fredrick Åsuldsen V.S. and Oline Christine Olsdatter. This author assumes that you are familiar enough with the area to know exactly what farm V.S. stands for. Since Ø.S. is Østre Sandøya (East Sandøya) I am pretty sure that V.S. must stand for Vestre Sandøya (West Sandøya). That is where you would start looking for information about Nilsine's family.
As you see, it is a matter of finding the correct starting point then jumping around the book backwards in time for each generation. It is easy to quickly feel overwhelmed with the amount of information you have because of the way it is scattered around. Teasing out all of this out is easier in a physical book because it is easier to jump from page to page. You will probably want to keep a good record of image numbers and page numbers of where your family information is.
It's kind of funny that this volume 2 start right off on page 753 in the middle of a paragraph. Volume one must have ended abruptly on page 752.
Hope this helps some. Do take time to get familiar with the book. Do you know your most recent ancestor who lived in Dypvåg? Do you need help finding that person in the bygdebok? If you post that person's ID number in Family Tree so I can get to know him or her, I'd be happy to find that starting point for you.
As you work in this book, do keep in mind that many other people have used it and there is a good chance that the vast majority of people in the book are already in Family Tree.
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I didn't look very hard, but I didn't stumble across the book's index. In case it isn't very good, I'll mention that the chapters will most likely be arranged by farm number, not alphabetically by farm name. A good reference for these farm numbers is the 1950 tax lists found at: https://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/stad/matr50
Here is the list for Dypvåg:
Since this list starts at 12, that means that when the farm numbers were assigned, Dypvåg was larger than it was in 1950. The bygdebok may well cover the larger area, likely starts with farm 1, and may continue well past farm 35.
But checking, I see that volume one starts with farm 34, Eidbo which is not first numerically or alphabetically. As I said, you have to spend some time figuring out exact how the author did things!
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Very good explanation. I can take it from here. The tax list is nice to have. You clarified what I wanted to be sure of - look for the farm and than the family. I have a very good family tree going back to the 1400s so my goal is to put as many actual documents with each person not just the FamilySearch page by using the books.
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