Finnestad Ancestry

Here is the 1940 US Census for Mary Olson and two of her children, Elmer and Olaf. Found on lines 4 - 7, Elmer was living with wife Mary Ann (Conner) and father-in-law, James E Conner.   Also living in the household was Juanita Spaulding, listed as niece.    Juanita was the granddaughter of James E Conner.      Elmer was employed as an electrician, Mary employed as a bookkeeper. Living next door, lines 8 - 9 is Elmer's mother, Mary (Knutson) Olson and his brother, Olaf.   Olaf was employed as a clerk for a clothing store. Juanita Spaulding was the daughter of Mary's brother, Arthur Edwin Conner and Ella Elizabeth Zapf. Elmer and Olaf were the sons of Mary (Knutson) and Stephen Olson, the grandsons of Elizabeth (Olsdatter) and Ole Andreas Knutson and the great grandsons of Mari Iversdatter Nordskår and Ole Olson Finnestad.

Ole and Mari Finnestad's granddaughter, Mary (Knutson) Olson was buried in Lawnridge Cemetery , Rochelle, Illinois.  I never knew where her husband had died or was buried until I received documentation (above) from Beverly Skog, the great great granddaughter of Ole and Mari Finnestad. I then found his grave marker in South Dakota, which can be found here .

Here is a photo* of Mary (Knutson) Olson, (the granddaughter of Ole and Mari Finnestad) along with her family in 1908. Back row, left to right:  Orville Ilin, Stanley August and Elmer A Front row, left to right:  Maine Elizabeth, husband Stephen Olson, Mary Elizabeth and William Roosevelt On Mary's lap:  Olaf A This photo would have been taken in Cylinder, Iowa as the family had moved from Rochelle, Illinois to Cylinder prior to 1901. Mary Elizabeth (Knutson) Olson was the daughter of Elizabeth (Finnestad) and Ole Andreas Knutson. *Photo provided by Beverly Skog, great great granddaughter of Ole and Mari Finnestad.

Last month I posted an obituary for Mary Olson, the granddaughter of Ole and Mari Finnestad. The photo with the obituary wasn't very clear but thanks to Mary's granddaughter, Beverly, I have a slightly clearer photo from the obituary. It looks like Mary is holding a cake. Here is a 2nd obituary that Beverly also provided. This 2nd obituary was the only one of the two that mentioned a sibling (Edith) which may indicate that her younger sister, Anna (Knutson) Larson had passed away sometime between 1930 and 1943. Mary was buried at the Lawnridge cemetery in Rochelle; her marker can be viewed here .

Here is the obituary* for Ole and Mari Finnestad's granddaughter, Mary Elizabeth (Knutson) Olson. Mary was born in Stavanger, Norway on May 16, 1867 as Maria Berthea Knutson .  Her parents were Elizabeth (Olsdatter Finnestad) Knutson and Ole Andreas Knutson. Unfortunately the obituary did not mention Mary's siblings; I am still missing one of the ten children born to Elizabeth and Ole Knutson. *Thank you to the Rochelle Flagg public library for providing this obituary from their archives.

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 no...

With some cemetery documents, I was able to confirm another branch of Ole and Mari's eldest daughter, Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Ole Andreas Knutson had a daughter, Mary who married Stephen Olson. In 1900, Mary and husband Stephen lived in Independence township, Palo Alto County, Iowa. Along with her husband, Mary lived with sons Orville, Elmer, Stanley and daughter Marnie. While errors are common in tracing genealogy, they can be frustrating. Eventually you come to accept them along with the roadblocks. The 1900 US Federal Census indicates that Mary had 5 children, of which 4 were living in 1900. However, a later census (which I'll be posting later) indicates Mary had 7 children, all of which were living at the time of the census. So it's difficult to determine which census record is correct.