Skip to main content

Alto Township, Lee County, Illinois - Finnestad, Vallem, Hall families

When I began this blog a couple of years ago, I had posted the 1900 Alto Township plat map for Lee County, Illinois, along with my guess as to where our ancestors resided. Long after that post, I had discovered that Rachel Vallem was Ole and Mari Finnestad's daughter.

Here is an updated map, along with my best guesstimate as to where the families were living in 1900, based upon the plat map and the 1900 US Federal census records.



Included on this map are the home sites for Ole Sr and family, Ole Jr and family, Rachel Vallem and family, Peter Vallem and family*, Isabel Hall and family* along with the location of the Finnestad school (also known as the Carlson school #135).


As you can see from the map, many family members lived rather close to one another, even after they married and started their own families.


*Based upon the census records, it seems possible that Peter and sister Isabel were renting a house and sharing with their respective families.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ole Finnestad Jr obituary

Here is the obituary for my great, great grandfather, Ole Finnestad Jr from the Dixon Evening Telegraph of July 9, 1928. Note the misspelling of his first and last name, though Finnestad was spelled correctly within the content of the article. You will also note that his brother Rasmus had moved from Canada to Washington by the time of his brother's death. Oddly, there is no mention of the sisters that survived him, leading me to believe they may have lost touch by the time of his death.

Kenneth and Lillian Finnestad obituaries

I have had previously posted the obituary for my great great grandfather Ole Finnestad several posts back. I have not yet been able to locate an obituary for my great grandparents Oliver and Mary Finnestad, though here are the obituaries for my grandparents, Kenneth and Lillian Finnestad.

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