Hi, Jon. I just wrote a rather long message and it disappeared. I may have pressed Add New Thread instead of Reply. Oh, well. I'll try to reconstruct it here. It's great that you know Yosemite. It was such an important place in the life of Edmund and all of us. Yes, it is a shame that the family lost track of itself. I can't believe I didn't know that Ole's sisters had also come to America. When did you first learn about Ole and the California connection? While my grandfather was alive all of his sons and families got together on Christmas Eve but after he died that stopped, sadly. I'm going to get in touch with my California cousins, whom I haven't seen in years, with the exception of Uncle Bill's son, Bill. The last time I saw my great uncle Tom's son Ted and his family was up on Silver Mountain in 1986. I have a genealogy question. When you look for records from Norway do you go to the Voss website or the Norwegian Heritage one? I stumbled upon those early last week but don't know if that's the way to go. And what about finding ship passenger info? Is there a better one for that?

More soon.

Lin

Lin,
I first learned that Guro had a twin brother in California from her obituary, which is included in my family tree. It does not give a name for him, but through the Digital Archivit, Stephanie Benoit (also of California) found them from their birth date. That showed that Niel and Magdalie were their parents. Then she answered another post of mine when I was looking for Ole's last name in the US. She had found him in census reports. When I learned who their parents were I went back to my Vinsand book and there they were all along, but nothing further than their names. It was an exciting day.
So this whole search started when my aunt Muriel brought me Guro's obit. about a year ago.
Now I use the Digital Archivit as well as the farm histories from the Vossaboki website. Mossafinn is farm number 240, but it is in Norwegian. I can read a little bit of it or at least figure it out.
More later. Good luck connecting with cousins, maybe you will find another genealogist in the family.

Jon

Hi, Jon.

I found some things you might be interested in seeing. I'm going to try to scan them today and get them to you. Would it make sense to email them to you as an attachment? My email address is linbenedek@yahoo.com, if it's easier to contact me directly. I will try to post them here as well but am not sure how that's done. Just let me know. I have a few documents and a copy of the article about Ole. The documents are not great xerox copies so I'm not sure how well they will scan. They were given to me in 1986 by Cousin Ted, Tom's son, Ole's grandson, up on Silver Mtn. There's a letter in Norwegian from the priest attesting to Ole's good character. There's one signed by Ole and the heading at the top reads Fogden i Nordhordlangs og Vos Fogderie. I'm going to need to learn some Norwegian. I'm impressed that you know some. There's a section describing him, I think, if Oine and Haar mean eyes and hair??? And there's a letter from a guide whom Ted and Peg met in Norway sharing what she'd learned about Ole. She thought that Ole's twin was a boy. She writes:

"Your relation Ole Nelson who emigrated in 1857 to the USA was a twin--his brother named Guro--born 27 April 1834. The twins were baptised in Voss. Parents Nils Gundersen Grimastad and Magli Mikkelsdtr., who lived on Opkvitne at that time. The twins were confirmed 30 september 1849 (the priest noticed that they had good knowledge and were good at wrighting). The parents lived in 1849 on the farm Mossefinn and they also used this name. Niels and Magli were smallholders and lived the place Nedre Molen under Mossefinn till they died-- Magli in 1867 and Niels in the year 1875."

Two other things. Ole's name in the docs has the third name as Utqvitne. And the article says they were born in Bullken, Norway. Does that make sense?

I read Guro's obit and was touched to read about her. She sounds like a wonderful woman. I noticed in the census records that she went by the name Julia Nelson. Did she change her name when she got to the US?

More soon.

Lin