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Finnestad Farm - Stavanger, Norway

It was customary in Norway to take the farm name as the family name. Prior to arriving in America, Ole Finnestad was known as Ole Olson.

According to the Regional State Archives of Stavanger, in 1862, Ole Olsen bought a farm from Bjørn Larsen.

The following link provides some farm information along with the family members in 1865:

http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/cgi-win/webcens.exe?slag=visbase&sidenr=59&filnamn=f61126&gardpostnr=582&sokefelt=vis

“Merknad 387b” now means property nr. 16 of the farm Finnestad.

(Please keep in mind that accuracy of records is less than perfect - so ages and other information are not always correct)





For more information on Stavanger and a map of the area, please go to the following wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavanger


Comments

Laurie said…
Hi. I have an interest in the Finnestad family as well. I have a book compiled by one of the family of Andrew Finnestad and his wife, Marie. Andrew is my great-great-grandfather and was born in 1864 on the Finnestad farm just outside Stavanger Norway. We recently visited Stavanger and I believe we found the farm on Eskslandsveien right off the E39 between Stavanger and the town of Randaberg. I have very little information on Andrew prior to his immigrating to the states in 1885. I am wondering how he may be related to Ole. I would love to discuss further with you as I am very interested in my history.
finnestad said…
Hi Laurie No relationship. This post includes a link that explains the Norwegian naming patterns:

https://finnestadhistory.blogspot.com/2008/08/olsons-soon-to-be-finnestads.html

The only link between Ole (Olson) Finnestad and Andrew Finnestad would be their residency at the Finnestad farm. I know an Andrew Finnestad ended up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. I initially encountered that information several years ago from a website, www.ourroots.ca but the website doesn't seem to function any longer.

The www.familysearch.org website has a family tree of that Andrew Finnestad:

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/KJDY-YXC

You would have to log onto your familysearch account to view this tree. With information about your family you would be able to discern whether this is the correct Andrew Finnestad.

Find a Grave entry for Andrew Finnestad:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/196569843/andrew-nels-finnestad

Good luck on your search.
Chandler said…
Laurie, hope you see this. I have been running up the Finnestad tree as well, but mine starts with Klaus Finnestad. Born somewhere around 1837 and married in 1859 in Bremnes. Klaus had 4 children born from 1867-1880 in Stavangar including Ole in 1875 before a lot of the family immigrated to Mitchell township in the US in 1885. I think we are barking up the same tree, but somehow I didn't see andrew in the records following klaus. I would love to discuss more

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