Nordic Blue

For months I've been meaning to get back to scanning a box of loose photographs given to me by a cousin who lives in New York, who had p...

When researching and writing my Johnson family history a few years back, I came across a conundrum:  how does one diverge all of the importa...

  Tin type photograph, ca. 1884/1885. Malla Vikesaa Larson (left), with possibly her sister, Karin (Vikesaa) (Larson) Pedersen.  Pro...

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...