Viking Tour 2023

Appropriate on our last day here, I spent some time at the Norwegian Genealogical Society. They are not usually open on a Tuesday but I received special permission to visit today.

I did not have any *eureka* moments while I was there, but took pictures of pages of various regional books which may be helpful as I am working through some of my lines. I would need weeks to fully explore all the books that might be useful – there were so many.

Overall, our trip here was a good one. I met relatives. I explored ancestral places. We went to many museums. We travelled by plane, motorhome, t-bane, rail, bus, and car. I think the only thing we did not do on this trip was take a ferry, but took one in BC to get to the plane.

In some ways I think I would have liked to have been more methodical and plotted the farms in the parishes to find exact locations. However, I’m not sure that would have changed the overall experience.

I found Norway reminded me of northern British Columbia with the trees, mountains and fjords. The area of Sweden we were in, with the rolling green hills and farms, was more similar to the Okanagan area of BC. Iceland was like a combination of the interior plateau and Banff/Jasper plus the Yukon all in in one, but spread out much further.

It was a wonderful trip. I’m glad I blogged it so that I can look back and remember things.

We would have gone to visit a Stave church in Norway even if I did not have ancestors connected to one of them. There was at one time around 1,000 stave churches in Norway but only 28 remain. The Heddal Stave Church was built around 1250 (but some of the building material is as old as 900) and is the largest stave church in Norway.

Stave refers to the pillars of the church that are used in the construction. The outer room of the building is a hallway that encompasses the circumference of the main church. There are four entrance doors to the main part of the church within that hallway – one for the priest, one for the choir, one on the north side for the women (because evil comes from the north) and one on the south side for the men. Those who were not permitted in church, such as women who had just given birth, had to remain in the hallway and watch the service through peep-holes.

The interior of the church had painted walls – though the original paintings had been changed after the reformation to remove the saints. The current restoration tries to bring back the church to be as it was originally. One of the items in the church on display was the Bishop’s chair that dates to the mid 13th century when the church was built.

And, finally there was a rune on the wall – they believe it is possibly a code for “Mary”.

Below are my 6x great grandparents Torjus OLSEN and Ingeborg TORJUSDATTER listed as being married in the Heddal parish records.

Older than the Stave Church, the Sauherad church was built of brick and dates back to around 1150. 

 Rollev JENSEN FLADHAUS (my 5x great-grandfather) shown here as the head of the second family on the FLADHAUS farm on the 1801 census living in the Sauherad parish. They most likely attended the Sauherad Church.

The Haugen farm in Heddal parish was the last place my 3x great-grandfather Hans Torgersen Haugen lived before he moved from Norway to the United States in 1868.  He is listed here on the 1865 census.

His son John Hansen Torgersen sometimes used Haugen as a surname after moving to the US. Since Haugen translates to “little hill”, there are a lot of locations called Haugen in Norway. The one in the Notodden parish is the one I believe is connected to my family.

On the way to and from the area, we had to cross an airport – the road has barriers similar to a railway crossing for when planes are landing.

One of the buildings that we see quite frequently, particularly in this area of Norway, is called a stabbur. Paul referred to it as an elevated root cellar, which is probably the most accurate description. It is built above ground and designed in such a way as to keep mice and other rodents out and is used to store food such as grains, dairy and meats for the winter.

Our next stop was the Gransherad church.  There was originally a stave church on the site dating back to 1369 that was consecrated by Olav the Saint.  However, the new church was built in 1849.  My line that I am working on in Gransherad includes Aslach HANSSEN SONSTEBOES who was born in 1792 (so from the old church rather than the new one.

The church is a fairly typical style of churches in Norway and certainly descendants of Aslach would have used the church that is currently standing.

I did find a grave marker that may be related to my family, but not a direct relation, I will have to track more of the family as it is in the right time period (I’ll just add it to the never-ending list of genealogical projects to do).

After Gransherad we stopped at the Hjartdal Church. The Hjartdal Church was built in 1812.  I wonder how my 4X great-grandmother Anne HANSDATTER felt about the new church when she was confirmed in 1814.

It was a small church with the graveyard across the road.

It was also the site of the 1540 Farmer’s Rebellion final bloody scene. Where five leaders of the farmers were executed by decapitation and a sixth was required to serve as the executioner. All the rest of the farmers, presumably including my ancestors, had to sign an oath to be obedient subjects. It is a fascinating story and you can read more here.

We topped off the day by visiting some fourth cousins who live in Kviteseid, which is situated in (or is it on) a beautiful fjord. We had a great dinner including moose stew – which made me a little homesick for the north, although we don’t have lingonberries with our at home in British Columbia. The cousins are actually related to the family in the Stord area of Norway. I was unable to establish contact with anyone from the Telemark area for this trip. This is the view from one of their houses.

Today we went down to the Historical Museum. We went to one in Sweden and now in Norway too.

In a gorgeous old building with marble stairs (a lot of them) we saw exhibits on the Samuari, which had just opened this week.

They also had an exhibition showing how nature intrudes on culture and how humans and animals cooperate for domestication. There was an exhibit on Gold coins with Norway’s largest coin collection, including a closer look at the Golden Treasure evacuated to places including Canada during WWII. The collection of gay coins was closed (even though it was supposed to be open until the end of the month). There was a display on Egypt in Europe.

The ceiling from Ål Stave church, the largest room decoration preserved from the Norwegian Middle Ages was beautiful to look at.

And, of course, there were displays on the Viking Era.

After the museum we wandered the huge Saturday flea market that starts right outside the Nationaltheatret.

We saw a lot of kilts today. And when we went into the T-bane station we heard the unmistakable sounds of the bagpipes being played. It seems that tonight Norway and Scotland have a football (soccer) match.

The town of Røros is one of the oldest towns of wooden buildings in Europe and is  a UNESCO World Heritage site. Røros is one of Norway’s coldest cities in the winter, but today was quite hot.

The town is, of course, looked over by a church.  Norway has so many churches that we see them wherever we go.

As we were leaving the hotel we spotted this and thought it was interesting, they seem to be putting a bigger roof over the old roof.

We spent the early part of the day wandering around the town and looking at the town and buildings.

There are quite a few shops, some with some interesting displays to draw you in, and, oh look, two yarn stores.

The train was delayed before it started.  They changed tracks and we could see them down at the end kicking the rails into place. It was hot and the train did not have air conditioning.  Everyone has been telling us how lucky we are and how nice the weather has been while we have been here.  It has definitely been nice, even if today was a little too much heat. Here are a couple of pics from that part of our trip.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get all the way to Hamar where we were going to change trains.  The train stopped and we all got on a bus.  Bye train.

On arriving in Hamar we discovered our re-routing was a result of the buckling of some of the tracks.  

We couldn’t get on the first train to Oslo as that train required reservations. We are travelling with Eurail passes, so we only needed the reservation part, not a full ticket. The clerk at the store couldn’t do reservations only. The online system wouldn’t reserve as it was too close to train time. The station reservation system said it there were no available tickets. Luckily there are lots of trains that go to Oslo from Hamar and we only had to wait another 15 minutes or so to get on the train to Oslo – this one was actually air conditioned. Now we are “home” in the Oslo apartment, ready for a good sleep before our next adventure.