| jmichaelkel | New and with limited knowledge of Norwegian genealogy, what I have found on my mothers grandparents from Norway - Hans Knudsen Studsvik, born 1876 Tysnaes. Immigrated to America in 1905. Brother Kristian, born 1871 Tysnaes also immigrated in 1892. Hans father was Knud Larsen and mother was Christine Johnsen. Hans wife was Helene Marie Halvorsen, born 1876 in Manger parish. Her father was Halvor Andersen and mother Marie Mikklesdr. Hans and Helen had two sons - Leif Dagfinn born 1904 Askoen and Hilmer Martin born 1906 Bergen. They immigrated in 1907 and joined with husband in Tuolumne, CA. Would appreciate direction on where to go from here to determine family history in Norway, hopefully locate descendents, and determine if other family members may have emigrated with possible descendents in America as my line had all died. |
| Hopkins | I've seen your recent postings and the responses on the Rootsweb/Ancestry Message Boards for Norway so I know that you've already seen the emigration registrations for members of this family from the port of Bergen - I won't repost them here.
You have the names of two areas in Hordaland, Norway that you will start your ancestry research in, Tysnes and Manger. I'll discuss Tysnes but the basic logic applies to any area.
You want to make yourself more familiar with where Tysnes is located - look for good maps of Hordaland, Norway; hardcopy and/or online. Make yourself somewhat familiar with the names of nearby districts/parishes - ancestors didn't have their shoes nailed to the ground and could have lived in other districts too. Also look for older maps which could give older names of the areas and show changes in boundaries.
Look for records contemporary to the period. One excellent resource is the records archived on microfilm/microfiche in the LDS Family History Library system. They have Family History Centers scattered all over the world where films and fiche can be ordered and studied by you. If you go to the LDS library catalog online and do a 'Place search' for Tysnes that catalog will give you a list of the topics that they have materials concerning for that area.
You'll find the LDS library catalog online at familysearch.org
For Tysnes they list topics of various Norwegian censuses (most also alternatively available for searching online through Digitalarkivet), CHURCH RECORDS, court records, GENEALOGY, history, etc.
The church records for Tysnes are available for your use - years ranging from 1724 to 1924. Those records should contain the birth/baptismal record for Hans Knudsen Studsvik born 1876 in Tysnes, possibly also the marriage record for his parents, their birth/baptismal records, etc. etc. earlier and earlier in time. If you've never used Norwegian parish records before - there's a wonderful "how-to" article in this online collection - http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~norway/articles.html
The Genealogy and History topics both list a published bygdeok series for Tysnes - "Tysnes, gards- og ęttesoge", 4 volumes by Ernst Berge Drange. Those volumes may be of great interest to your research but the LDS has not copied them to film or fiche so the books would have to be consulted through some other avenue. The article collection I previously mentioned includes advice about how to borrow such books through the inter-library loan program. Of course, a local history/genealogy book for Tysnes will be written entirely in Norwegian - so be prepared with a good Norwegian-English dictionary or a helpful translator. I've found that names, dates and locations can often be discerned fairly easily even by the beginner and narratives of additional information saved for later translation. You can also look for others who already have those volumes accessible and might be willing volunteers to do a few 'lookups' - but not an entire family history for you. Places to look for such volunteers include -
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wgnorway/lookups.html
http://www.rootsweb.com/~bwo/
This one doesn't work for me this morning but I'll list it anyway, perhaps back up soon -
http://members.tdn.com/dagwood/lookups.html
I gave you the link to some very helpful articles about Norwegian genealogy research - but I also recommend the Research Guide guide pamphlet published by the LDS. You can also look for more learning help in the links provided by Cyndi's List online - topic Norway.
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