Skip to main content

Mary (Maria Berthea) Knutson

A couple of weeks ago I was attempting to find some documentation to verify the Finnestad family tree going back to 1390. Until I have located records to confirm our lineage back to 1390, such as parish documents, etc, I'm skeptical as to whether I was on the right track.

In any event, I stumbled upon a Norwegian website that mentioned Ove Olson, who would have been Ole Olson Finnestad's great grandfather. Ove would be my great great great great great great grandfather.

I contacted the owner of the website about a couple of things and also to see if they could assist me in finding information about Ole and Mari Finnestad's eldest daughter, Elizabeth. Incredibly, what I received in response was a PDF file that mentioned the parish where Elizabeth and husband Ole Andreas Knutson had moved sometime prior to the birth of their daughter, Mary in 1867.

I have posted previously about Mary, who had married Stephen Olson and a few postings about their descendants, but I did not know where Mary was born, nor had I located the parish records. So with this new information, I scanned the parish records and was able to find 2 more of Elizabeth and Ole Andreas Knutson's children. As of this writing, I've located the names of 9 of their 10 children.

Here is the official parish record from the St Petri church of Stavanger, Norway for the christening (entry #180) of Mary (Maria) Berthea Knutson. Maria Berthea Knutson was born May 17, 1867 and baptized June 10, 1867.




Here is the copy of the parish record from Stavanger, Norway for her (entry #172) christening.



The great thing about having both an official and a copy of the Norwegian parish records is to confirm not only illegible handwriting, but that you have the right person. One version may seem possible, but the other helps nail it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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.

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.

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