The Reason for my Scandinavian Obsession
Hello, everyone!
I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. I hope we become better friends as I discuss all things genealogy on this blog. First, let me tell you how I became interested in genealogy. Long ago in high school, my church youth group did an assignment to find our grandparents on census records or any historical record. I was partnered with a kind older man in his 70s and he was showing me how to use FamilySearch. This was in the late 1990s so Family Search has changed a lot since then, but it was still fascinating to me. I typed in my paternal grandfather Melville Ray Rosencrantz, Jr. and up popped a census record that showed he was a 19-year-old boy living with his parents and two siblings. I was so excited to actually find something on my grandfather.
My grandfather had died when I was three years old so I never knew him personally. I saw pictures of him as a middle age or older man and that’s the picture that I had in my mind about him. When I saw the census record, I could imagine him as a younger man. I started wondering what his life was like as a 19-year-old living on a farm. I was 16 years old at the time of seeing this census and it made me think about him as a teenager. It sparked my curiosity to know more about my family.
The older man helping me was happy for me, but didn’t believe I was going to continue my search for my family. He was pleasantly surprised when I came back on my own the next week to discover more. As a typical teenager, this new curiosity didn’t last long when faced with life. Therefore, genealogy for me went on the back burner until I got married and was a stay at home mom with a baby and more time on my hands. The curiosity came back and I started asking my family more about genealogy.
I had lots of fun tracing my Rosencrantz family back to the 1700s in Orange County, New York. However, the real fun came when I discovered my maternal great grandmother Johanna Krogh. My grandfather, Melville Rosencrantz, Jr., married Gertrude Alice Webb. Gertrude’s mother was Johanna and Johanna was from Norway. I had found my first immigrant and she was Scandinavian. As far as I could tell, nobody had researched her line. I wanted to know more about her Norwegian roots. That’s where I’m at right now. I’m still discovering her Norwegian family. So far, I’ve discovered that I have a lot more Norwegian cousins living in the United States then I thought!
I’ve learned many things about how to uncover your Scandinavian roots and I want to share that with all of you. My specialty is Scandinavian research; however, I want to help any of you with your families, whether it’s American research or Scandinavian research. Bring it all and we’ll have fun!
Happy Hunting, Everyone!
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| From left to right, Kenneth Webb, Johanna Krogh, Gertrude Webb |
Tiffany