I'm trying to decide whether these two men are the same or not
To merge, or not to merge?
Tønnes Severin Jensen (MS92-92R) Born 11 Jan 1876, chr Flekkefjord, Vest-Agder, Norway
Severin Thomas Jensen (MWYN-TND) b "Hidra," Vest-Agder, Norway, died 22 Aug 1955 Yellowstone, MT, USA
Parents' names are the same. There is no sign of another child in that family in the Norwegian records.
Birth is almost the same - Hidra is a local parish in Flekkefjord; the month matches, the date and year are slightly different in some records.
I did not find him in the moving-out records for any parish in Flekkefjord.
The first one is in Norwegian records until the (Jan 1) 1891 census, where he is using his middle name, Severin.
The second appears in US Records beginning 1918 (draft registration). 1920 census gives immigration date 1890, 1930 census lists 1893.
個答案
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I think there is a good chance that they are the same person, but you should do more research to know for sure. See if you can find birth records for both in the parish or just one. Also see if you can find a probate for one or both of the parents as that should list all their living children. If the probate says their son Tønnes is living in Montanna, that would be really good evidence that they are indeed one and the same.
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Thanks - I’d forgotten probate records. I’ll have to find parents’ death dates first. I started looking for the family in the 1900 census yesterday, and so far haven’t found any of them, so they may all have fled..
The father’s name is unusual, and I’ve combed christening records for the family and recorded all children found.
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I found a probate record showing that all 5 sons were living in Amerika. The 4th son has been listed on records as Severin for several decades in Norwegian records. https://media.digitalarkivet.no/view/55229/15
It's disappointing I was not able to find Udflyttede for ANY of them!
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They are the same person.
Looking at the sources for Severin Thomas, his birth date is given variously as:
about 1877
28 Jan 1877
28 jan 1877
about 1876
about 1876
about 1876
about 1876
about 1871
Nothing in the sources points to 28 Jan 1875 in Hidra so the contributor, cholland/smith/2264763 must have had a different source for that date and place that has not been included here.
His parents are listed in a marriage source as Jens Jensen and Bertha Olsen. Listing the father’s surname incorrectly as being the same as the son’s is a common mistake in US records of Norwegians, so the fact that you have the parents as Jens Reinertsen and Berthe Olsdatter is not a problem.
Looking at the 28 Jan 1875 brith date, it cannot be correct because the 1875 census for Jens and Berthe, which was taken on 31 Dec 1875 does not list Tønnis Severin and looking at the parish records, there is no record of a birth for such an individual in Hidra near that period.
https://www.digitalarkivet.no/census/person/pf01052229002092
https://www.digitalarkivet.no/kb20060105030252
Here is the family in the 1891 census which lists Severin
https://www.digitalarkivet.no/census/person/pf01052910003243
And, as you have already found, here is his birth record:
Ministerialbok copy:
https://www.digitalarkivet.no/kb20070108670662
Klokkerbok copy:
https://www.digitalarkivet.no/kb20060105030257
Both the 1865 census and Tønnes’s birth record show the family was living at Storehaaland which shows why his brother John took the surname Haaland in the United States and is a firm connection, via the World War I draft registration card, to the family in Norway.
I’ll just toss in here that Tønnes’s most complete birth place could be recorded as:
Storehaaland farm, Hidra sub-parish, Flekkefjord parish, Vest-Agder province, Norway.
If I were working with this family, I would probably enter his birth place as:
Storehaaland, Flekkefjord, Vest-Agder, Norway
and his christening place as:
Hidra Kirke, Flekkefjord, Vest-Agder, Norway
Here is Tønnes’s emigration record. In it, he is also using the surname Haaland:
https://www.digitalarkivet.no/view/8/pe00000000280880
He is traveling on his own.
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I was looking at the sources again and see that you found the probate listed for Jens Tobias.
Here he is in the 1910 census:
https://www.digitalarkivet.no/census/person/pf01036607001756
and here he is in the 1900 census:
https://www.digitalarkivet.no/census/person/pf01037245001542
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The 1875 birth date came from his death certificate and obituary.
Thanks for the Emigration record - I haven't yet figured out how to use that database. (every time I've tried, I've gotten nothing.)
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Thanks for the Census links - I hadn't yet found those.
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The emigration record search is hard to use. Probably because the records themselves often have such limited information. The search has to be very broad but usually you have to make some assumptions about what you might find to limit the search.
For Tønnes, I assumed he would have left through Kristiansand since he lived to close to there But I find it works best to set the geography to the full area such as Sørlandet Then I find that I have best luck entering an emigration search through the advanced person search feature picking all emigrant databases at once. Also, since I knew that his brother used the surname Haaland, I wondered if he might, too. That led me, after several unfruitful attempts, to set up this search which brought him up:
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