| Author |
 Topic  |
|
rkolson
Junior member
USA
65 Posts |
 Posted - 04/09/2013 : 20:08:31
|
My grandmother, Anna E Tofte(7/12/1891, kempton, il) always said her family was from Tofte Island. Her father, Heldor Thornbjornsen Tofte(10/10/1862, Bergen?) may have em. 1882. His parents were Thornbjorg Tollaksen Tofte and Anna Olive T. Vik.(is Vik a farm?). I can't find any em. records for Heldor and when i google Tofte it shows up everywhere..need your help again. Thanks
|
|
|
jwiborg
Norway Heritage Veteran
Norway
4961 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2013 : 20:48:10
|
Haldor Thorbjørnsen Tofte (20) emigrated from Bergen on 21 Apr 1882.
His residence and place of birth says "Fjeldberg". The area Fjelberg is located in Kvinnherad, Hordaland county.
I guess we could be talking about the island Halsnøy in Kvinnherad, Hordaland county. There are Tofte farms on that island.
Map
There is an island named Toftøya ("Tofte island") just to the right.
#29 Haldor Thorbjørnsen
Born: 14 Oct 1861
Christening: 20 Oct 1861, Eid, Hordaland, Norway
Parents: Torbjørn Tollaksen Tofte & Anna Torstensdr
Source: Hordaland county, Eid in Fjelberg, Parish register copy nr. B 2 (1854-1868), Birth and baptism records 1861, page 24.
Jan Peter |
Edited by - jwiborg on 04/09/2013 21:29:42 |
 |
|
|
Hopkins
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
3351 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2013 : 23:08:56
|
Most of the old Fjelberg district in Hordaland was composed of a group of islands (a few 'mainland' coastal areas nearby too). Tofte Nedre and Tofte Øvre farms are located on one of the smaller islands in that group as mentioned above. Your family (Haldor Torbjørnsen son of Torbjørn Tollaksen line) lived on the Tofte Nedre farm at least as early as the middle 1700s.
Torbjørn's wife was Anna Oline Torsteinsdatter from the Vik farm also in Fjelberg but located on one of the larger islands in that group. (Please note that there are Norwegian farms named Vik almost all over that country.) I believe they had 11 children -- Haldor's parents, and two sisters still lived on the farm in 1900 --
http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/cgi-win/webcens.exe?slag=visbase&sidenr=11&filnamn=f01213&gardpostnr=153&sokefelt=skjul
Both of these farms and brief genealogies of the families that lived on them are published in "Kvinnherad 5 -- Allmennsoga - Gards-og ættesoga - Eid og Fjelberg", a Norwegian bygdebok series for the Kvinnherad area which is composed of 5 volumes. Naturally a book published in Norway for Norwegian readers is written in their language - have a good Norwegian-English dictionary. |
|
|
|
rkolson
Junior member
USA
65 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 02:52:09
|
| this is great...explains a lot. i still can't find Haldor on a passenger list, can you help? also, kvinnherad doesn't show up on any maps, is it a parish? thanks bob |
|
|
|
Hopkins
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
3351 Posts |
|
|
Kåarto
Norway Heritage Veteran
Norway
5861 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 08:44:28
|
No pass. lists.
Haldor dep. Bergen April 21. 1882, shipping company was Cunard Line.
Cunard line dep. from Liverpol England for New York.
Ships dep. Bergen for Hull England 1882
Cunard Line
Kåre |
Edited by - Kåarto on 06/09/2013 08:45:14 |
|
|
|
Kåarto
Norway Heritage Veteran
Norway
5861 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 08:48:15
|
Searching Kvinnherad, use this map
Kåre |
|
|
|
Kåarto
Norway Heritage Veteran
Norway
5861 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 10:07:46
|
Haldor em. in a group of 20 persons leaving Eid sub parish, Fjeldberg, Haldor is #14
Perhaps Ellis Island has records on them.
Kåre |
Edited by - Kåarto on 06/09/2013 10:09:47 |
|
|
|
jkmarler
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
7790 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 12:51:27
|
Ellis Island didn't open until 1892. Before Ellis Island New York entries were at a place called Castle Garden. There is an ongoing project indexing them and the search engine is located at www.castlegarden.org
|
|
|
|
JaneC
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
3020 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 13:04:24
|
Maybe sometime as you go along you'd be interested in the "lags" (clubs) formed in the USA by Norwegian immigrants and their descendants at the turn of the last century. The intention was to nurture the bonds between Norwegian Americans and their roots in Norway. These lags are still very active. Many have websites. Most hold annual meetings of members. Here are links to an "umbrella" website that covers a number of lags and also a link to the Sunnhordland lag that pertains to Haldor (Fjelberg is in Sunnhordland in Hordaland)...and thanks for your patience if all this is old news to you:
http://www.fellesraad.com/#Bygdelag
http://www.fellesraad.com/sunnhordland.htm
The above resource occurred to me since Kåre identified a group of 20 persons leaving together. This makes a chance that you could find, through the lag, descendants of some in the group who may have a story about the crossing, handed down by private oral history.
Also the above resource occurred to me since Hopkins mentioned a series of Norwegian bygdebok with a history of your family. Some members of the lag may own these books. Some may be willing to do look-ups and translations. At the least they can tell you where is the nearest location of these books to you.
Below, Haldor in 1865 Norwegian Census:
Tellingsår: 1865
Kommune: Fjelberg
Kommunenummer: 1213
Navn på bosted: Tofte øvre
Thorbjørn Tallaksen hf g Gdb. Selveier 1829 Fjelberg
Anna Thorsteinsdatter Hans Kone g 1832 Fjelberg
Johan Thorbjørnsen Deres Søn ug 1854 Fjelberg
Thorstein Thorbjørnsen Deres Søn ug 1858 Fjelberg
Ingeborg Thorbjørnsdatter Deres Datter ug 1860 Fjelberg
Haldor Thorbjørnsen Deres Søn ug 1861 Fjelberg < ------------------------
Anna Thorbjørnsdatter Deres Datter ug 1863 Fjelberg
Johannes Aslaksen ug Tjenestekarl 1844 Fjelberg (hired help/servant)
Siri Olsdatter ug Tjenestepige 1839 Fjelberg (hired help/servant)
Anna Haldorsdatter e Vilkaars Enke 1792 Fjelberg
A help in understanding the census:
http://www.rhd.uit.no/art/michael02.html |
Edited by - JaneC on 06/09/2013 14:35:27 |
|
|
|
JaneC
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
3020 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 14:26:05
|
Is this your family, rkolson?
1910 US Census
Ford County, Illinois
Holver T. Tofte 48, Tena 42, children Thorvil, Anna age 18, Izora, Joseph, Mabel, Louisa, Mabel
and if so is this your great-grandfather Heldor:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Tofte&GSiman=1&GScty=42067&GRid=97781461&
and if so, there are children of an Ingeborg Tofte buried in the same cemetery. Ingeborg, married to Ole T. Isaacson, could be Heldor's sister? She is of the right age (and perhaps you already knew that!). In 1910 in Kankakee county Illinois Ole and Ingeborg's household included their children Hattie, Christina, and Abraham.
http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/kankakee/cemeteries/grandprluth.txt
Ingeborg Thorbjørnsdatter Tofte age 27, born 1860 in Fjeldberg , registered to emigrate from Bergen in 1887.
http://digitalarkivet.no/cgi-win/webcens.exe?slag=visbase&filnamn=EMIBERG
|
Edited by - JaneC on 06/09/2013 15:03:35 |
|
|
|
jkmarler
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
7790 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 14:47:18
|
From pre 1900 marriages of Illinois:
ISAKSON, OLE TOBIAS
TOFTE, INGEBERG THORBJORNSDATTER
1889-03-07 00A 00002024 KANKAKEE |
|
|
|
JaneC
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
3020 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 14:59:12
|
Bingo  |
Edited by - JaneC on 06/09/2013 15:00:25 |
|
|
|
Hopkins
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
3351 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 16:02:53
|
Robert - Your actual line of inquiry here seems to be to find emigration records from Norway and/or a ship's passenger list (manifest). The Norwegian records of emigration would be the police protocol of emigrants out of Bergen (linked above) and the Fjelberg/Eid parish "outgoing" records (linked above). The only source for a ship's passenger list (manifest) would be in the port of North American arrival for these persons. Which North American port? That could be possibly New York (Castle Garden) or any of the other Canadian or American ports which would be convenient to reach their intended destination. Not all of these are indexed and/or available on the Internet so some real investigation and research might be necessary to discover such a document.
You'll want to consider the modes of further travel available to the new immigrant when they arrive through a port and then need to go on to their final destination. My own Fjelberg ancestors who arrived in North America in the 1850s and 1860s were more limited than yours would have been in the 1880s. |
|
|
|
JaneC
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
3020 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 16:36:05
|
| Most often nobody finds any documentation of travel between an American port and arrival in an American city. If Haldor's passenger manifest is found, arriving 1882, it will have very limited information and will most likely not include his intended destination. Therefore it will not tell whether he's headed straight for Illinois - or stopping off somewhere first. Robert would probably need an obituary or other personalized source to know Haldor's full travel story. |
Edited by - JaneC on 08/09/2013 01:14:38 |
|
|
|
Hopkins
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
3351 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2013 : 19:47:10
|
Yes, documentation of migration within the United States is usually non-existent -- but the transportation then AVAILABLE can be considered. Were the railroads built to that location to carry passengers? Was there yet train bridges over the Mississippi River? Were ox-carts still in common usage in the area? Ship passage over the great lakes? I often think of the Mormons who WALKED west across the continent -- that was determination almost beyond my belief.
I have found stories of how early emigrants arrived in published histories of counties, small towns and churches; obituaries and small town newspaper stories. In one small Iowa town I know that a group arrived by ox-cart from Wisconsin traveling diagonally across Minnesota to arrive. Later arriving Norwegians to the same little town stayed in Illinois through the US civil war and finally headed west to Iowa by the newly finished railroad line that then terminated nearby. One detailed story of family migration from port to final settlement location was unexpectedly shared by a very distant cousin from a personal memoir dictated by the earliest emigrant of their branch of the family. My great grand-father had his first destination painted on the side of the wooden travel chest that he brought with him and I now know that he stayed there for up to 4 years before migrating further west to where he could buy his own land and start his family.
Documentation of the travel from Canadian or eastern US ports to areas further west - no I've never found any still existing. But I considered carefully what was available to each separate family group, where they might have had friends or family who had emigrated earlier, etc. Some of the articles on this website about actual travel stories of emigrants have been quite enlightening as to methods of travel used by Norwegian emigrants.
Such considerations can be very very useful when trying to determine which North American port(s) of arrival are the most likely to have been used and how to prioritize a search of the most probable. |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
Tofte
