Skip to main content

In other news...

These days, I'm thoroughly enjoying digging into the searchable databases of archived newspapers online - whether it's GenealogyBank, Newspaper Archive, or Google News.  I've read about a 2nd great-grandfather's antique collection, lively city council meetings, legal proceedings, advertisements, marriages, baptisms, burials.  The details found in historic newspaper articles breathe new life into the two-dimensional names and dates filling my tree.  A little snapshot of life as our relatives knew it!

Here's one such clip - one of many, many social snippets I've found while researching both of our families.  On November 13, 1930, the Moorhead Daily News published the following comments in the social section:

IMAGE SOURCE

"...Mrs. O. E. Olson of Laurel and Joe Nelson of Pelican Rapids motored to Barnesville Monday.  They are visiting Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Morben and Miss Esther Olson on Sunday.  Mrs. Olson will return to her home accompanied by Ralph Morben and George Nordeberg.  These men will enjoy a few days hunt in northern Minnesota."
  1. Mrs. O. E. Olson -- my husband's maternal great-grandmother.  Her full name is Anne Pedersdatter Mjoen, daughter of Peder Eriksen Mellem (1828-1877, Oppdal, Trondelag, Norway) and Barbro Pedersdatter Ekrann (1838-1909, born Oppdal, Norway; died Otter Tail county, Minnesota).  Anne was born in Oppdal, Sor Trondelag, Norway in 1874 and died in Koochiching county, Minnesota in 1954).  In 1907, she married (2nd husband) Oscar Emil Olson.  Her surname by birth - Pedersdatter - is typical of Scandinavian naming patterns.  Simply, it means "daughter of Peder".  Mjoen is a geographic description...of their farm's location and name in Norway (Mjoen kalvehagen).  Anne immigrated to the United States with her mother Barbro and siblings in 1892.   She married first husband John Nelson (1860-abt 1905) in 1895.
  2. Joe Nelson -- son of Anna Olson and first husband, John Nelson.  Born 1902-died 1952.  Joe's father, John, has been incredibly difficult to track down.  Based on anecdotal information from the family, John died in the early 1900s-  about 1905.  However, I've been unable to locate a death record.  Also, John immigrated to the United States in the 1880s; with such a common name - and one that was probably "Americanized" in some way - I've been unable to locate his exact immigration record.  
  3. Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Morben -- Ralph Bernhardt Morben (1896-1980) and wife Linda Marie Nelson (1901-1987; daughter of Anne Pedersdatter (Mjoen) Nelson Olson).  My husband's maternal grandparents :).

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pay It Forward

A bit of joy for my Friday! Our mail delivery within our little military community here in Sicily is so.very.sloooooow.  What makes it maddening is that it can be a combination of super-fast and super-slow...so no one seems to balk at the trend of inconsistency.  Maybe I complain enough for everyone :). I'm in the middle of a few genealogical mysteries - one of them being the family origins of a Mr. Joseph W. Daly, a paternal great-grandfather of my husband.  Like most of the challenging parts of our tree, I hit a wall with Joseph a few months back and promptly put him aside when something a little more lucrative came along.  For sake of ease.  Now, we meet again.  For this one, I even consulted a few curious friends.  I felt like maybe I wasn't searching deep enough or with the right "keywords" online or in my genealogy search engines.  Some researchers have favored methodologies for searching, and I felt I needed to branch out.  One ...
11 comments
Read more

Camp Butler - Newport News, Virginia

In my previous post I introduced my third great-grandfather - Hachaliah McMath, Jr. (1840-1916) - and his experience specifically at the end of the Civil war as a prisoner of war.  Context: Hachaliah McMath, Jr. is my 3rd great-grandfather on my father's maternal side of the family. After his capture in Farmville, Virginia following the Battle of Saylor's Creek, McMath was transferred to City Point, VA (Grant's headquarters) and then on to Newport News, Virginia.  From what I can determine, the Newport News area was occupied by Union troops for a large portion of the war.  Camp Butler was heavily fortified, as seen in the lithograph below - from the "Civil War in Newport News" collection of the Newport News Public Library System: Image Source From what I understand, the Prisoner of War camp was created alongside of Camp Butler to accommodate excess Confederate soldiers captured toward the end of the war.  Essentially - the POW camp in Newport News serve...
Post a Comment
Read more

Wordless Wednesday: Pelican Rapids Baseball

(Pelican Rapids Baseball Team, Ralph B. Morben, 4th from left; photo held by family) Ralph B. Morben (1896-1980) - my husband Paul's maternal grandfather. (Image Source)
2 comments
Read more