V. "Logjam"
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Rena

Agnes has a long workday at the nursing home, so without our guide and translator, today is an off day for us and a perfect day for any who travel on Paul’s Lazy Man Tours. Again, we slept late, but we were punctual for the 11:00 a.m. library opening so we could meet the librarian and begin research. The local library is part of a bigger Cultural Institute that includes a theatre and a place to eat, and it is the repository of records for both church and state. I saw a book for sale that would have made for a good gift for family members, a history with pictures of this area. I thought the price tag was a mistake. Surely, a small book of 150 pages couldn’t cost $60 US. No mistake. Books, as well as most everything else, are expensive in Norway.
Today I knew the agony and ecstasy of genealogical research, more agony than ecstasy, but I’m quite sure that’s how it goes in the world or genealogy. Early on there was a victory! I found the baptismal record of my grandfather! Born September 29, 1864, he was baptized January 8, 1865, as Peder Pedersen. But the new information created new questions. He was baptized at home, not in the Amot Church. Why? Was he sick? He was not baptized by the pastor. A man named Ole Olsen baptized him. Did the formal state church deputize a layman to baptize? That seems very strange. What were the circumstances? One breakthrough leads to more logjams. I’m learning to appreciate the momentary joy of small breakthroughs.
And it’s good I can do that, because I hit another big logjam. Any hope of going generations beyond Peter Ronning (baby Peder Pedersen) will be difficult until I have broken through the logam caused by his sister, Martea Pedersdatter Lillehaug. Those singlularly monogamous people who marry for life and bear their children at appropriate intervals make the genealogist’s efforts a breeze. But Martea, who is the key to the Lundborg connections to the Bolstads and all of the other relatives in Norway, first bore a daughter Petra by Karinus E. Bolstad, then proceeded to have three other children by three other men and never married any of them. Karinus then married Gurina who had a son, Haakon, by another man. So her son, Haakon, grew up in the same household as Karinus’ daughter, Petra. Got that? Then they married—Haakon married Petra. Raised in the same household but not related by blood, it’s all very legal. But very confusing.
I can’t be too hard on Martea. It appears she was the one of the lower class who was not allowed to marry up; or the men in her life were not allowed to marry down. This was an issue where the big farmers provided a small piece of land for their workers. The workers were a lower class than the owners. But this principle was flexible enough throughout history, so it appears that during the era when my grandfather and his siblings lived in Norway, pietistic moralizing ran rampant.
I will be unstacking every piece of timber in this genealogical logjam for a long time. I didn’t get to explore Peter Ronning’s parents, Peder Nilson from Varmland, Sweden, or his mother Marthe Olsdatter. And I never got around to searching for Peter’s wife, Gertie. Maybe next time. Or online. Or through the help of these relatives in Norway.
Breakthroughs are more fun than logjams. Pass the dynamite.