Nordic Blue

It was nine feet tall and six feet wide soft as a downey chick It was made from the feathers of forty eleven geese took a whole bolt of clot...

In my last post, I wrote about the Hans Thorsen Slaaen and Anne Thorsdatter Vaterland family that settled in Coon Valley, Wisconsin, after e...

In 1841, Gulbrand Gunderson Skaret and his family from Sigdal, in eastern Norway, became the first white settlers in Coon Valley, Wisconsin....

In family history research, it is all too easy to take a wrong turn, as I was recently reminded. A good part of my research for a recently p...

Some musings on how we interpret history I've had a lot on my mind lately, and not just the myriad of responsibilities and concerns that...

Regina Winje Strand (1873-1899) Duty, Fate, and Beauty: A Norwegian-American Pioneer Legacy Remembered (a repost from February 200...

In 1886, at age 25, my great grandfather Ole Martin Johnson married and brought his 17-year-old bride, Malla, to live on the farm his parent...

A beautiful child is timeless... Laura Basgaard (1884-1982) The seventh of nine children, Laura was born in Polk County...

I paid another visit to Ancestry.com recently to "re-search" some individuals, and ended up striking gold. Since the last time I ...

Hannah Parr An early Norwegian emigrant ship Sorry, I just can't do this one completely wordless... The Hannah Parr is the ship that m...

A Hand Up, Not a Hand-Out Ernest Johnson, my grandfather, was unable to eek out a living in the 1930s solely by raising crops on his ...

How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm? My grandfather's family was, almost unamiously, stubborn and proud: not so proud that ...

Ernest Johnson Begins Farming During the Depression era, independent farmers like my maternal grandfather, Ernest Johnson, found it inc...