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Iverdine and Rakkel (or Rachel) Finnestad

Being a little motivated today, I found some more ancestors.

Iverdine and Rachel (or Rakkel) Olson (Finnestad), two of Ole and Marie's daughters came over from Norway to the United States in 1871. So far from what I have found, they are the earliest to emigrate to the United States.

Here is the link to the passenger list:

Iverdine and Rakkel's big adventure


As you can see, they sailed from Stavanger May 26 1871 and arrived in Quebec July 14 1871 on the ship Nordens Dronning.

The Nordens Dronning was owned by Køhler & Co in Stavanger. This ship is referred to as a clipper ship. In 1871 the Nordens Dronning departed from Christiania (Oslo) on May 13th, and sailed for Stavanger. She departed from Stavanger on May 26th, and arrived at Quebec July 14th. She was sailing in ballast, and was carrying 9 cabin and 397 steerage passengers. There was one birth and five deaths on the voyage. When the ship arrived at the quarantine station on Grosse Île on July 9th, 13 were sick after an outbreak of scarlet fever. The ship was detained in quarantine for 5 days. The Nordens Droning was mastered by Capt. Ole Helliesen and a crew of 22. Her tonnage was 1084 tons. The passenger list was archived by the National Archives of Canada [NAC].

I was able to use the census records to confirm the ages at the time of their trip and then did a cross reference on another website which verified these are actual ancestors.

I was also able to confirm that Rachel married Lewis P Vallem in 1872 and I have been able to locate census records to verify their children and some of the grandchildren.

If I had known earlier that Rachel married Lewis P Vallem, I would have seen that they fall right between Ole Sr and Ole Jr on the 1900 Federal Census. That's the problem with name changes when a marriage occurs.

I will update the family tree spreadsheet at a later time.

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