Monday 4 January 2010

Emigration

Many members of my family emigrated to the US - many more than I realised. On my paternal grandmother's side, her father's family was split: three out of six siblings left for the US in the 1880's, settled in various parts of the country and (as far as I have been able to ascertain) they had no contact with each other. The only connection was through letters and photos sent home to the family remaining in Norway. On her mother's side, the rate of emigration was even larger; her grandfather emigrated with his youngest son as early as in 1853, most of his siblings had already left for the US, and my great grandmother's eldest son and his wife also left for the "promised land" out west in 1887.

There were many others from my family background who left Norway for the new country, and it is quite a task to unravel all the stories and connect them up with the nameless photos I find in the family albums I have inherited. Some I have been able to identify, but so many remain. I hope to share my findings in this blog as the work progresses.

2 comments:

  1. My grandmother came to the USA in 1915 from England, and I knew she left behind many relatives but we didn't know how to start finding them. Through blogging and posting notes on genealogical bulletin boards, a few distant cousins have contacted us. I wish I had some letters from the era, but I have no idea if they even wrote to each other across the Atlantic!

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