One of the best reasons for doing genealogy is thinking about the stories of your ancestors.
I spent many hours wondering why Ingeborg Rollefsdatter Holte would have chosen 1875 to come over with her brothers. The long depression was still happening in the US, so it wasn’t the place of ideals that is was in the previous decades. The family had lasted through the famine in Norway and those were a recent memory, but not a current issue.
Was she looking for work? Did she want to own land herself? Did she need to leave town and her brothers were there to ensure she did? Did she and John have an arranged marriage (there were from neighbouring parishes) and her brothers were there to ensure it happened?
The many hours I could spend thinking of possibilities is one of the reasons I love genealogy. It brings the people who came before me to life. It makes me think of them as real people and wonder about their lives.
