The Quest: Who Am I?

"We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us.". How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying - I can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers.   That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before." -- by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943."

Have you ever seen that show "Who Do You Think You Are?" where celebrities dig into their roots to discover their ancestry?  Well, that's what this blog will be...my version of "Who Do You Think You Are?"  It is a quest to dig into not just my grandparents or great grandparents histories, but the generations upon generations of ancestors from whom I descend.  I am not just interested in names and dates, but their stories: the happy, the sad, and the scandalous (yes, there are some of those).  What started as a simple quest to locate where my maternal grandmother lived in Brooklyn, NY has turned into a journey to discover my roots.  Starting tomorrow, I will be traveling to seven countries in six weeks, hoping to find information on my ancestors and uncover their stories, and in turn finding myself. So, the first stop:

Place: Rogaland County, Norway

Ancestors: My paternal grandmother's grandparents Andrew Tow and Elen Sampson and their ancestors. Andrew Tow was born in Strand in 1837 to Sjur Endresen and Marthe Olesdatter.  Now here is the difficulty with researching Norwegian ancestry, the names. Norwegians don't really have last names per say, rather children take the name of their fathers, so if Bob has a son named Billy, Billy's last name would be Bobson because he is the son of Bob. If he has a daughter, let's call her Jane, she would be Jane Bobsdatter, because she is the daughter of Bob. This is helpful as you can determine the name of the previous generation's father simply by looking at the last name. Using this, we can determine that Andrew's father was named Sjur, Sjur's father was also named Andrew (or Endre in Norwegian), and Andrew's mother was the daughter of Ole.  Norwegians will also sometimes take the name of their farm or town as their last name or in addition to it. In Andrew's case, as he was the son of Sjur, he was named as Endre Sjursen.  When he immigrated to the USA, he dropped Sjursen and took the name Tow or Tau instead, Tau being his hometown.  Andrew was born in 1837 and was a twin. Both he and his twin Lars were baptized four days after birth.  About a year later, Sjur, Andrew's father, drowned while fishing.  His mother remarried and then in 1847 also died leaving Andrew and his brothers orphans.  As soon as he was able, he immigrated to America in 1854.  He served in the Union Army during the Civil War.  He enlisted as a Private in the Iowa 35th Infantry Co. I on August 15, 1862.  He then discovered that Captain Henshaw's Light Artillery had a large Norwegian population over in Illinois.  So he went across the river to Illinois to join Captain Henshaw's Light Artillery without having discharged from the Iowa 35th Inf. This caused confusion, disruption and arguments as both Captain Henshaw's Light Artillery and the Iowa 35th Inf. claimed him. The matter was finally resolved in Washington D.C. by President Lincoln who ruled in favor of Captain Henshaw's Illinois Light Artillery.  The war was so traumatic for Andrew that he became a Quaker.  In 1874, Andrew married Elen a fellow Norwegian and Quaker who was the daughter of Sampson K. Sampson, or rather Knute Sampson, so properly Elen was Elen Knutesdatter. Elen's parents, Knute and Maren, had a farm called Stakkestad.  Maren was the daughter of Erik Nelson and Elen Guttormsdatter. Erik was a minister and came from a long line of ministers. He died when he fell off a barn roof he had been shingling.  The main funeral service was at the house.  Then four men carried his body down to the fjord on their shoulders and placed it in the boat.  Close relatives followed and, entering other boats, formed a procession for the trip to the Skjold graveyard.  They rowed about 6 1/2 miles past the Aurslandsoyni Islands and along the full length of the Grindefjord into the northern end of the Skjoldafjord proper and onto the cemetery.  Some years after, his widow and family immigrated to the USA, settling in the Midwest.  Elen Guttormsdatter later converted to Mormonism at the encouragement of her brother. Indeed, one of his granddaughters married Joseph Smith's son!

Thanks to family diaries and stories, we know where Andrew's and Elen's families lived as well as some dates of birth. This gives a start to the research and hopefully the next few days in Norway will prove fruitful and exciting!  So here's to six weeks of discovery and fun!

Cheers!

Elizabeth