Jill's Genealogy Journey

Stories, Discoveries & Tips

Immigration

Ellis Island and Immigration

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I just finished the book The Next Ship Home by Heather Webb. This book is set in 1902, which was a time of change for Ellis Island. They were dealing with some corruption. This book was not always fun to read – bad things happen to the main characters. However, I was glad to get a feel for what it was like coming across the ocean on a ship and going through Ellis Island since my great-grandmother went through there in 1905.

My great-grandmother, Katri Kemppainen, crossed the Atlantic Ocean via the Lucania. I hope she got through Ellis Island quickly, but that still would have been 3-5 hours there. And they would have used the button hook to do the icky eye exam. From what I can tell, she didn’t have anything that would have detained her. From the ship’s manifest, she could read and write and she was listed as a servant. She was 26, in good health and had $20. She was going to Chisholm MN to meet a friend who had paid her ticket: Vilho Laitala at Box 127 in Chisholm. Yes, that was the man who would become her husband in 1906.

In addition, the book made me think about how culture and language shape who we are and it was good to read about women who defied the conventions of their time.

Picture of Ellis Island 1905

I have been interested in the immigration stories of my ancestors for a long time and of course Ellis Island was an important part of the experience in the US for decades. From 1892 to 1954, 12 million immigrants went through Ellis Island.

If you want to learn more about Ellis Island, check out their official site. You can look up passengers and see ship manifests. There is also an oral history project where you can listen to people talk about their experiences going through Ellis Island. You can see a picture of the great hall here. Katri would have seen something like this – arrivals in 1904.

Immigrant Exhibits

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Recently, I discovered that the Minnesota Digital Library launched several online exhibits about Minnesota immigrants. In the one on immigrant experiences, something jumped out at me: Lars Fjeseth. You might recall that this is not our Lars, but the two have similar names and lived at the same time near each other: https://jillholman.com/genealogy/fjerestad-versus-fjeseth/

The new exhibits are:

  • Minnesota Immigrants: People on the Move
  • Minnesota Immigrants: Immigrant Experiences
  • Minnesota Immigrants: Preserving Culture

There also is an older exhibit called Farm to Table. Find all four exhibits here.

Next, I clicked through and explored some of the Primary Source Sets, which were very interesting. Here are three of my favorites:

  • Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota
  • Lumber Industry in Minnesota
  • Mining on the Iron Range

They have added a lot of resources since the last time I checked! Let’s see what they have for Chisholm.

Here we see that we get 151 items when we search for Chisholm in the Minnesota Digital Library.

There are several pictures of the mines and also the ruins after the 1908 fire. While few of the people are labeled, you can get an idea of what it looked like to be there in the early 1900s, which is when William and Katri Laitala arrived in Chisholm. I think these two pictures might be my favorite:

That could be my great-grandfather William standing there!

West of the Moon and Norwegian Emigration

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Cover of West of the Moon by Margi Preus

I found myself listening to West of the Moon by Margi Preus on a recent road trip and I really liked it. It is a good story and it won a Minnesota Book Award in 2015. She draws on Norwegian folk tales, so I felt I was getting in touch with my Norwegian heritage.

While this book is fiction, she was inspired to write it by her great-great-grandmother’s diary, where she describes coming to America in 1851. In particular, there was a girl alone on the ship in the diary which inspired Preus to write this story.

I have always been interested in emmigrant stories. What is that like to leave everything you know and endure a difficult journey in the hopes of making a better life somewhere new?
The author did a bunch of historical research and yet the book still has a timeless, fairy-tale quality. It is not just a children’s book either! There are some good philosophical questions in there as well.

Wait a minute, didn’t my Norwegian great-great-grandmother come to America as well? Did she come alone like the girl who inspired the story? Was she hoping to find her father like the girl in the story?

Pic of Fjerstads1940
Anna with her son Pete and his daughter Fran and her son Boyd (Four Generations! circa 1940)


Here is what we know so far . . .


We find my great-great-grandmother, Anna, in an emigration database leaving Bergen, Norway 8 Apr 1885. I have not yet been able to document her complete journey through ships logs or border crossings. She has a lot of name variations.


Her father was already in America, but we don’t know that they kept in touch. She had been born out of wedlock, so she probably was looking forward to a fresh start. Her brother Amond emigrated later in 1905.


She got married to Lars Fjerstad in Minnesota on 22 Nov 1889. He had emigrated the year after Anna. I imagine they met here since they were from different Norwegian towns. They went on to have six children and 22 grandchildren.


They did have relatives around from Lars’ side of the family. His three siblings also came to America in 1892 and 1893. His mother came in 1893 after her husband died and we see her living with Lars and Anna at the time of the 1895 census. Brother Ole was living with Lars and Anna at the time of the 1900 census.

The White Bear from Kay Nielsen’s version of East of the Sun and West of the Moon in 1922


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Mayflower Ancestors

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Funny story . . . I discovered I have a Mayflower ancestor last Thanksgiving. Yes, on the holiday where we think about the Pilgrims and the Indians, I discovered I have a Pilgrim ancestor. I sure wish I had known when I visited the Plymouth area years ago! I have to admit I am kind of excited about this discovery. There are lots of descendants of the approximately 217,000 Revolutionary War soldiers, but there were only 102 Mayflower passengers and about half of them died the first winter.

While checking sources, I discovered another Pilgrim ancestor! A married couple, Samuel Washburn and Abigail Leonard each had a Mayflower ancestor. Here is what we know about the ancestors of Samuel Washburn and Abigail Leonard. Some dates are approximate and calculated. Most of this information is from the Mayflower Families through Five Generations volumes 12 and 15.

The Ancestors of Samuel Washburn and Abigail Leonard

I will go into more detail on the Washburns in an upcoming post, but for now let’s talk a bit about the Mayflower passengers, especially Francis Cooke and James Chilton, both signers of the Mayflower Compact.

There is some great description about the ship and the journey here. Over two months on a small ship under bad conditions! They got off course from where they were supposed to settle and there was some disagreement between the Puritans and non-separatist Pilgrims.
They wrote the Mayflower Compact to govern themselves and this was the first written framework of government established in what is now the United States. Many people believe the Mayflower Compact influenced the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

The Mayflower Compact by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863–1930)
The Mayflower Compact by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863–1930)

Francis Cooke

Francis Cooke was my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. He had been a woolcomber in England, then he was in Leiden for a bit and then ended up on the Mayflower in 1620 with son John. He made it through that hard first winter and lived many more years, until 1663. Wife Hester and the other children came on the Anne in 1623.

James Chilton

James Chilton was also my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. He may connect back to Robert Chilton who was a representative from Canterbury to Parliment in 1339 – I would love to find out more about that! James was born around 1556 in Canterbury England. He was a tailor and spent time in Leiden. Rocks were thrown at him and his daughter. He came over on the Mayflower in 1620 with his wife and daughter Mary. He died in Cape Cod during that first infection and his wife died soon after. Poor daughter Mary! Only 13 years old and an orphan in a strange land. Another daughter, Isabella, came to Plymouth 1629 or 1630.

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