Death of Clara (Knutson) Nelson and daughter Ester

Edward Nelson, husband of Clara (Knutson) Nelson wrote about the death of his wife and daughter, Ester. The letter was written in Norwegian and later translated by Eva Sorensen into English.

Below is a copy of that letter.

Edward Nelson's letter

Clara was the daughter of Elizabeth (Finnestad) and Ole Andreas "Andrew" Knutson and granddaughter of Mari (Iversdatter Nord-Skaar) and Ole Finnestad.

Thank you to Clara's great granddaughter, Laurel Armstrong for providing the letter as well as her help in connecting the Nelson family to the Finnestad family tree.

Comments

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

Rasmus Finnestad - death certificate

I had previously written two posts regarding the death of Rasmus Finnestad. Those can be found here and here . Here is his Washington state death certificate: The death certificate incorrectly lists his father as "Oluf". His father was Ole (Olson) Finnestad. His mother was Mari Skaar, misspelled as "Skaare" on the death certificate.

Mary Olsdatter (Finnestad) Bell: Witness for the Prosecution

Mary Olsdatter Skåreflådå (Finnestad) Bell appeared as a witness in a murder trial that took place in Dixon, Lee county, Illinois from April 26, 1898 through May 5, 1898. The December 27, 1898 issue of the Dixon Evening Telegraph reported the initial details of the December 24th murder of Fred Tolsted on their front page. From page 2 of the Wood County Reporter (Grand Rapids, Wisconsin) in their December 30, 1897 issue, the 'suspect' alleged the victim connected him 'unpleasantly' with the housekeeper (Mary Finnestad Bell). The local newspaper in the adjoining county, published a brief article on the murder on January 12, 1898 on the front page of The True Republican in Sycamore, DeKalb county, Illinois. The Sterling Standard published the names of the law firm, prosecuting attorney and judge in the upcoming murder trial on page 12 of their January 13, 1898 issue. The trial began on April 26, 1898 as reported in the April 27, 1898 issue of the Dixon ...

Finnestad Ancestry

Search This Blog