Jill's Genealogy Journey

Stories, Discoveries & Tips

Old Photographs

Family History Photo Project

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I have some time this winter break to scan in those old photos. I don’t want them to degrade any further. If I have photos you want, I will be ready to share them soon.

Do you have old photos? Even if your immediate family is not really interested in family history, someone might find them invaluable, like maybe your second or third cousin.

I will circle back later and report on the process and tools I used. Here are some articles to get you started:

For now, here is my wish list. These are ancestors where I do not have pictures and they might be out there somewhere:

  • Charles Holman
  • Isaac and Louis Belle Vipond
  • Isaac and Catherine Vipond
  • Lars Fjerstad
  • Buel and Almira Atchison
  • Johan and Anna Laitala
  • Teunis and Elizabeth Middensorp
  • Ubbe Reemts Iwwerks
  • Adeline Caza

If you have any of these photographs, please share them with me!

Box of old family photos

2023 Holiday Collection

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I made a couple more ancestor ornaments this year – what a nice way to honor our ancestors! See them up close here.

If you want more context on these families:

I also thought it would be fun to customize a notebook and sticky notes.

Picture of ancestor ornaments, sticky notes, notebook

P.S. You can even use these to get started and customize them yourself!

The Fjerstad Timeline

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Here is the most current and correct information for the Fjerstads now that a few more documents have surfaced.

Pete Fjerstad’s Ancestors
  • 5 Jan 1778 – Ole & Ingri marry Leikanger, Sogn Og Fjordane, Norway (index)
  • 1801 – Povel & Christi & kids are in Leikanger, Sogn Og Fjordane, Norway (census)
  • 26 Oct 1835 – Sjur Nilssen & Guri marry in Etne, Hordaland, Norway (marriage)
  • 2 Oct 1864 – Lasse born to Johannes Paulsen & Anna Lassedr in Balestrand, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway (baptism)
  • 13 Sep 1866 – Anna born Norway to Nils & Anna(death cert, 1900 census)
  • 1875 – Nels O Sjurson is in Martin, Rock, MN (census)
  • 8 Apr 1885 – Anna immigrated (emigration database)
  • 12 Apr 1886 – Lasse immigrated (emigration database)
  • 22 Nov 1889 – Lasse Fjerstad & Anna Jordahl married Arendahl, Fillmore, MN (marriage cert)
  • 14 Jan 1893 – Johannes Paulsen Fjarestad buried in Balestrand, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway (buriel)
  • 15 Jun 1893 – Anna immigrated (emigration database)
  • 1895 – Lars & Anna & baby Johan are with brother Ole & a mother Anna in Arendahl, Fillmore, MN (census)
Pic of Fjerstads1922
Amanda, her son, her husband, Anna holding Fran & Atchie circa 1922
  • 2 Oct 1895 – Pete b. Fillmore MN (grandma, death cert, draft card)
  • 2 Sep 1898 – Claire Fjerstad born Staples MN (funeral card, death cert)
  • 1900 – Lasse & Anna with 4 kids & brother Ole in Arendahl, Fillmore, MN (census)
  • 1910 – Louis & Anna with 6 kids in Brookings SD (census)
  • 7 Feb 1914 – Lars died
  • 1915 – Anna owned land in Hansonville (plat book)
  • 1917 – Pete farmed in Hendricks MN (draft card)
  • 1919 – Claire & Pete married Hendricks MN, she worked in a bank at the time (Fran & Margaret)
Pic of Fjerstads1922
Claire holding Fran
circa 1922
  • 1920 – Pete & Claire in Toronto, Deuel SD, he worked in a restaurant (census)
  • 1920 – Anna & 2 sons in Hansonville Lincoln MN (census)
  • 23 Jan 1920 – Frances Fjerstad born to Peter and Clair Deuel SD (birth cert)
  • 1930 – Pete & Claire in Yellow Medicine MN with 7 kids, he’s a car mechanic (census)
  • 1930 – Anna is with son Henry’s family in Saginaw, Saginaw, MI (census)
  • 1934 – Anna is in Mpls at 3853 44th Ave (city dir)
  • 16 Feb 1937 – Glen and Fran married in Milbank living in Ortonville MN (marriage cert)
Pic of Fjerstads1940
Fran & her father Pete
His mother Anna holding Fran’s son Boyd
Four Generations!
  • 1940 – Claire has 8 kids in Madison, Lac Qui Parle, MN (census)
  • 1940 – Pete is in the State Reformatory in St Cloud (census)
  • 1940 – Anna is with Bert and Harold & 2 kids on 44th Ave (census)
  • 1942 – Pete is in Madison, Lac Qui Parle, MN (WWII draft card)
  • 8 May 1950 – Anna is with daughter Bertha’s family in Brooklyn, Hennepin, MN (census)
  • 7 Jun 1950 – Anna dies Hennepin MN (death cert)
  • 30 Aug 1951 – Claire dies St Paul MN, marriage box says separated (funeral card, death cert)
  • 23 Jan 1968 – Glen Holman dies Hennepin Co MN (death cert)
  • 2 Aug 1974 – Pete dies Hennepin MN (death cert)
  • 17 May 2002 – Fran dies Hennepin Co MN (death cert)
  • (As always, there are no details about living descendants to protect their privacy.)
Pic of Fjerstads1941
“Fjerstad Brats August 24, 1941”
(that was written on the back)
L-R back: Fran, Robert, Margaret, Lorraine
front: Paul, Mary Ann, Dick, Dean, Jody


 
You might also be interested in:

Ancestor Ornaments

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Do you find it hard to know what to do with all your research?

What if there are some easy and fun options?

How about ancestor ornaments!?

Ancestor Ornaments: Holman, Fjerstad, Laitala & Middendorp

What a nice way to honor our ancestors!

Click here if you want to see these ancestor ornaments up close.

If you want more context on these pictures:

P.S. Thinking about doing this yourself? It was a little fussy to design these, but if you have some technical skills and you already have done the genealogy research, it isn’t too difficult. You can even use mine to get started and customize ornaments yourself!

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!

LaBlanc Cousins in 1941

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Here is a neat old photograph from October 1941, probably in Comstock or Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. These were my grandmother’s cousins, but she is not in the picture. Her son was just a few months old at the time, so she likely was home caring for him.

Doris & Calvin with their LaBlanc cousins October 1941

We can identify a few people for sure. Renie and Melena and their two youngest Doris and Calvin. They were living in Comstock at the time. We think we see William and Emily LaBlanc and their littlest son Ronnie, who were living in Turtle Lake.

I went to the 1940 census to see where the cousins were living and how old they were at the time. Likely most if not all of William and Emily’s family are in the picture, but we aren’t sure exactly who is who. In 1941, they would have been these ages:

  • Byron, 19
  • Alice, 17
  • John, 16
  • Laurance, 15
  • Ervin, 12
  • Francis, 5

Who are the rest of the people? It is possible the Kuschner’s came from Duluth and are in the picture. Edward was 32 in 1941, Dorothy was 26, Lois was 6 and Lloyd was 4. I don’t think Aime and Rose Desmedt are in the picture, but maybe their daughter Muriel came with the Kuschners? What is the chance that the Temtes or the Moscrops came from Los Angeles?

I imagine war was on their minds. Paris had fallen to the Nazis the previous year and then the Nazis bombed England for months. The attack on Pearl Harbor would happen in December and the US would join WWII. Two of these cousins would lose their lives in the war:

  • Robert Temte registered for the draft the same month as this picture, on 27 Oct 1941. He died just a few months later, 27 Mar 1942 aboard the Atik, torpedoed by a U-boat off the coast of North Carolina.
  • Byron LaBlanc was reported MIA 9 August 1944 when the B-24 he was serving on disappeared on a combat mine-laying mission over the South China Sea.

Lastly, I finally tried MyHeritage In Color™ on this picture. It does bring an old photograph to life!

LaBlanc cousins October 1941 in color

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