(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Who ARE these people?

This picture is a real family treasure. That is, except for one thing. I don't know who everyone in the photograph is or even might be. I recognize my Great Grandmother Kari Syverdatter Myren (#3  front row) from the different pictures I have of her. As for the other eight ladies, I have no idea who they might be. 

On the back of the picture, my mother had carefully written the following note "Grandmother #3 Kari Myren, LaCrosse, WI". Looking at the remaining women, I do not recognize any of my Myren aunts (Kari's daughters) nor do I have any information in my research of Myren or Syverson/Syvers family living in LaCrosse, WI, in the 1930s. The 1930s time period is my guess based upon the fashions and Kari's death in 1938.

So, if anyone recognizes any of these women, I would love to hear from you. This mystery is almost enough to make me start labeling every photograph in our house with names, date, and place. In the meantime, perhaps I need to look more closely for any relatives who might have been in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, all those years ago. 
#Myrenancestors #whoarethesepeople #LaCrossWIgathering #mysteryphoto

June - a Month for Wedding Discoveries, part 1

"The Wedding Morning"
by John Henry Frederick Bacon, via Wikimedia Commons

June is still considered to be a traditional month for weddings. It is a time filled with hopes, dreams, family, and the excitement that comes with entering a new stage of life. And for me this week, June has been the time I discovered two interesting marriage records. It was enough to make me do my version of a wedding happy dance.

Over the past few years, I have tried unsuccessfully to find the marriage record of my GreatGrandparents, Peter Petersen Myren and Kari Syversdatter. I have looked at numerous online databases and indices, studied various North Dakota records, all without success. I had even requested snippets of possible records only to discover before I purchased a copy of the record that the records were not for my ancestors. Even all the focus and attention I gave to my Norwegian roots during the Genealogy Do-Over had not been enough to help my find this marriage record.

A recent e-mail from Ancestry.com mentioned a hint pointing to a birth record for a Norwegian relative. The birth record was part of Ancestry's database of church records from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, records covering 1875-1940. In one of those Ah-Ha moments, I realized I had not checked this database of church records for the marriage of my GreatGrandparents. I had only been looking through the civil records of Wisconsin and North Dakota.

It took using several variations and spellings of Peter and Kari's names, but I was eventually rewarded when I found the marriage registration record shown below.

source: Ancestry.com

My notes, shown in color to the left of their entry, indicate that this really is my Peter and Kari's marriage registration. The names of family members agreed with what I knew of Peter and Kari's families, as did Peter's listed residence. The marriage date of 16 December 1880 verified the approximate time period in which I had suspected they were been married. Assuming all along that they had been marred in the Dakota Territory, their Wisconsin marriage showed that I was only about 400 miles off in my geographical calculation.

From that day in 1880, the couple lived together in North Dakota until Peter died in 1923; Kari passed away in 1938. Eight of their nine children grew up on Peter's Dakota homestead; one child died there in his infancy. Today the property is still owned by a family member. I'm so glad I finally find the true beginning of their story.

The marriage information I found for another relative presented a very different story, a story I will share late.

Lessons Learned:

• Boundaries in the United States were sometimes fluid in the period before an area officially became a state. Names of areas also changed through the years. In your research it pays to look at the counties or even states around the area in which a family lived.
• I am so appreciative of the record keeping of the Lutheran Church in America. Their records enabled me to find a long missing marriage record. These and similar church records greatly add to the information available to us if we search just through civil records.

Workday Wednesday : Looking at "The Way We Worked"(1)

"The Way We Worked"
Johnson City Public Library, Johnson City, TN

The Johnson City (TN) Public Library is currently hosting "The Way We Worked", a traveling exhibit developed by the Smithsonian Institute as part of their Museum on Main Street program. We are able to have the exhibit available locally through the sponsorship of the Tennessee Humanities Council. It was a fascinating exhibit to view, one I hope will be in your area someday.

Seeing "The Way We Worked" has also led me to look back at the variety of occupations about which I have written in some previous blogs. These include:

Gold Miner Samuel Hillhouse

Homesteader Peter Petersen Myren

Land Agent  Thomas Smiley

Minister  Albert Bell Vaughan

Musician Gertrude Andrews Myren

Painter Hans Syversen

Soldier Raleigh Spinks Camp

Surveyor Ernest Perkinson

Tax Collector (and Singing Teacher) Elijah Hillhouse

Teachers Charlotte Vaughan  and her sister Louise Vaughan

Tufted Spreadmaker  Nelson relatives

And finally, the post about the Citizens of Wildcat Cherokee County, Georgia

Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing some photos of other relatives at work.

(1) "The Way We Worked", http://www.museumonmainstreet.org/theWayWeWorked/index.html.

Mappy Monday : Here Comes the Syversen Family, part 3

The Syversen Family
created using Wordle.net

Between 1870 and 1900, a number of members of the Syversen family immigrated from Lesja, Oppland, Norway, and settled in the United States. Following their move, family members usually took on a variety of surnames. The primary ones found through US and state census records or engraved on cemetery markers are shown above.

By 1900, the family members were scattered across the midwest and were known by a number of different surnames. Yet, they were still family. Below is a brief look at the Syversen family after they came to the United States.

Patriarch Syver Hansen kept the surname of Hansen. A few years after immigrating, he died in Jackson County, Wisconsin.

His oldest daughter Anne Syversdatter and her husband Haldor Ericksen remained in Norway, but all five of their sons immigrated to the US in the 1870s. The brothers at times lived near each other but eventually were scattered across the country.  Son Elias moved to Wabaunsee County, Kansas and was known as Elias Holvorson for many years. Their second son Syver moved to Umatilla County, Oregon. Lars went by the name of Louis Halverson after his move to Garvin County, Oklahoma. Their fourth son Mathias. known as Mat Halvorsen, lived in Morrow County, Oregon. Ole, their youngest son, ended up in California. Three versions of a surname, four different states, and that is just one part of the Syversen family.

Hans Syversen, the son whose immigration started this series of posts, eventually lived in Day County, South Dakota, and took the surname of Belle. His sons Hans, Ole, Anton, and Otto continued to reside in South Dakota but used the Belden surname, Belden being the name of the farm area where the family has resided in Norway. Anton was later known as Anthony Belden while his brother Otto was sometimes referred to as Oscar Belden.

Another daughter, Ronaug Syversdatter, married in Norway and later immigrated to the Trempealeau, Wisconsin area with her husband, Syver Johannansen.

Guro Syversdatter seems to have been the first family member to immigrate, coming to the Chicago area around 1870. After her marriage to Erick Pederson, the family lived in Jackson County, Wisconsin. Through the years, several family members would stay with Guro and Erick after they first arrived in the US.

The second son, Syver Syversen also lived in the Jackson County, Wisconsin area. Syver, however, was known as Siver Siem, Siem being the name of another farming area in Norway.

My Great Grandmother, Kari Syversdatter, immigrated to the US before 1881 and married my Geat Grandmother, Peter Petersen Myren, They homesteaded in North Dakota, and a descendant of theirs still owns the family farm. Two of Kari and Peter's daughters preferred to use the surname of Myron while the rest of their siblings, as well as the parents, chose to use the name Myren.

It has been interesting to follow the various paths taken by members of the Syversen family. As shown on the map above, by 1900 the siblings and cousins were scattered across the country. Each seemed to have a surname preference, and although many were farmers, they also followed a variety of career paths. My research in following the family has also led me to contacts with other family members living across the US today.

I chose to write this post without my usual citations, but trust me, they exist. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in the sources used for the information presented here.

A final thank you to Thomas MacEntee. His Genealogy Do-Over encouraged me to be more systematic in my research and in recording the information I located. Without these tweaks to my methodology, I probably never would have been able to write this post.

Now, I think I'll take a look at some of those Bright Shiny Objects I came across in this journey.

Coming to America: The Syversen Family, part 1

SS Germanic, White Star Line
source: John S. Johnston [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The other day I really seemed to be on a roll. In a relatively short time, I located the passenger list showing my 2Great Uncle Hans Syverson and his family arriving at the Port of New York on 17 Aug 1878 aboard the SS Germanic.(1)    Some of the research involved records accessed through the Digital Archives of Norway (DAofN). I accessed other records through Ancestry.com.

My successful plan for finding Hans Syversen's immigration records used the following steps.

1. Use the Norwegian census records for 1865, 1875, and 1885 to establish the last census year in which the family or individual was recorded as living in Norway. (DAofN). Also, check US Federal census records to see when the family is recorded in the US.

Hans and his family were recorded in both the 1865 census for Norway and the 1875 census for Norway but not in the 1885 census. Both 1865 and 1875 records showed the family living on the Belden South Farm in Lesja Parish of Oppland. According to the 1880 US census, the Hans Syversen family was living in Linden, Brown County, Minnesota. This gave me a timeframe of between 1875 and 1880 for the family's emigration period.

2. Check local parish records to see if the family or person is listed as a "Removal", the column heading used for individuals notifying the church of their intent to move out of the area or to emigrate. (DAofN)

Oppland, Lesja Parish, Register #8, Migration Records, 1878-1879, p 589
Digital Archives of Norway

After looking at the Migration Records for 1875-1877, I found this page listing Hans and his family.  The family had notified the church of their plan to leave 17 July 1878 for America.   All of the family, Hans Syverson of Belden Farm, his wife Marit Paulsdatter, and their children Toline, Sofia, Marit, Hans, Ole, and Anton were planning to emigrate to America.

3. Study US Federal Census records to see the year recorded for immigration, number of years in the US, or information on naturalization. (Ancestry.com)

According to the 1900 US Federal Census, Hans immigrated to the US in 1878 and had been in the United States 22 years. This agreed with the parish record shown above. For the son Hans, however, different information. In the 1910 census, son Hans indicated he had immigrated in 1889 while the 1920 census gave 1876 as the year he arrived in the US. In the 1915 South Dakota census, son Hans said he came in 1875 and had been in the US for 40 years.  Hans (the father) had the date of 1878 that corresponded with the parish date of 1878. His son Hans, for unknown reasons, had various dates ranging from 1876 to 1889. I chose to consider 1878 as the probable date the family emigrated since the father Hans had provided that date in 1900, a time closer to the actual event than the later years in which his son Hans gave emigration information.

4. Search for the family or individual in immigration databases and ships' passengers lists.  Use sites such as Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Library and Archives of Canada, The Ships List,  Castle Garden for immigration 1820-1892, Ellis Island, or Steve Morse's One-Step Search.

This part of my research took a number of tries. With our immigrant ancestors, we are viewing passengers lists sometimes written by someone writing in English based on information spoken in another language so the variation in the spelling of names can necessitate additional searches for information. Add to the passenger list information, the fact that it has been transcribed or edited by yet others who may not be familiar with names from other countries.

Another variable in my search was estimating the arrival date for the family. I found a series of excellent articles about the process of emigration from Norway and conditions found in the steamers that crossed the Atlantic to America on the Norway Heritage website.  The articles mentioned that Norwegian immigrants primarily sailed from Norway to Hull in Yorkshire, England or other several other English ports. From the English port, the emigrants would travel by rail across England to the port of Liverpool to begin their trip across the Atlantic. The trip might take as long as a month based on making the connection to cross England and board the transatlantic steamer. If Hans had indicated to the Lesja Parish church that he and the family planned to leave on 17 July 1878, I hoped to find him arriving in American sometime in August of 1878.

A third variable concerned how his name might be listed on a passenger list - Hans Syverson, Hans Syverson Belden, Hans Belle as he was listed in the 1880 US census, or perhaps some variation I had not anticipated. Through trial and error and much adjusting of the "Broad to Exact" sliders on Ancestry's search boxes, I finally found the family of H S Belle listed as arriving at the Port of New York on 17 Aug 1878, exactly one month after the family departed from Norway.

I was not certain at first this was MY Hans Syverson of Belden farm. I looked back at both the 1875 Norway Census and the parish Migration Record to compare the Norwegian family listings with the one on the New York passenger list. One huge difference was seeing the entire family listed on the passenger list as being from Sweden instead of Norway. The family members' names and information were generally more accurate. Below is my transcription of the passenger list with corrections made in (red).

#154    H S Belle    age 44   male    farmer    Sweden (Norway)
#155    Mar (Marit) Belle    age 43    female    wife    Sweden (Norway)
NOTE: daughter Marie was listed as leaving on the parish Migration Record, but she was not on the passenger list.  Checking into this is definitely on my To-Do List.
#156    John Belle    age 17    male    laborer    Sweden    (Here was a big difference - no John was ever recorded as being a member of the family. However, there was a daughter Toline Belle, age 17 in 1878, who is also listed in the 1865, 1875 and 1880 censuses.)

#157    Sofia Belle    age 14    female    spinster
#158    Maret (Marit) Belle   age 11    male (female)    child    Sweden (Norway)
#159    Hans Belle    age 9    male   child    Sweden (Norway)
#159    Ole Belle    age 5    male    child    Sweden (Norway)
#160    Anton Belle    age 3    male    child    Sweden (Norway)

Comparing this passenger list with information I already knew about the family, I was confident I had found the passenger list for my 2Great Uncle Hans Syversen and his family. According to SteveMorse.org, all passengers arriving in New York in 1878 would have been processed through Castle Garden so I also looked for the family using the Castle Garden database. On the Castle Garden website, I wasn't as successful in finding a listing for the family's arrival. Their website provides a template of information on individual passengers rather than digitized records that can be browsed. I never keyed in the right set of search terms to actually find the Syversen family records.

I had found the information in a few hours and without a lot of difficulties, thanks to the sliders on Ancestry.com's search screen.  I thought I had established a winning sequence of research steps for tracing my Norwegian relatives on their travels to America.  I couldn't wait to try it out on other relatives who I knew had immigrated to the US in the late 1800s.

To be continued ...

(1) "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957", SS Germanic, arrival Port of New York 17 Aug 1878; accessed Ancestry.com; citing National Archives M237, roll 414.