You don't really know where you're going until you know where you've been...

I heard the line in my blog title in a movie tonight, and it really clicked with me. Maybe this is why I am so interested in the past.

I have been working on my grandmother's line lately. I found out that my grandmother's maternal grandparents were first cousins. This was probably not so unusual at the time. I also discovered a gggg-grandfather from Denmark (Agger Sogn) who was a constable. He was born circa 1780, but I need to find his Danish birth record. One good thing is that Danish records are freely available the way Norwegian ones are. Also, Norway was a union with Denmark during this time, so it makes sense. I admit that I still need to look up more about this part of Norwegian history.

Another interesting aspect of genealogy is looking at death records. Many of them tell you what caused a person's death. I find that tuberculosis, cough, pneumonia, etc... caused the most deaths. I am sure the flu was probably a much bigger killer than it is today, and people often died from complications. I did run into one strange cause of death. One of my ggg-grandmothers was married once before to a man who died by "naturlige kopper." They had a baby daughter who also died a few months later by "naturlige kopper." I assumed that this was copper poisoning, but my father says it is small pox.  

Some other things I have been working on is planning the reunion in Norway. I have a Web site going, but I wanted to complete my grandmother's tree a bit better before going live. Then I hope to contact my grandmother's sibling's relatives through the Web site, and I also hope to contact all other relatives, too. I am still hoping to have some pictures found, especially the pictures that belonged to my grandmother's sister, Astrid. As I said in my last post, they ended up somewhere after she died. But I have found a way to get still-shots from video -- I have a video I took in the 90's of my grandmother's and her sister's pictures. So I tried to get some still-shots from it, which I am posting below. They did come out a bit warped and blurry, but I am posting a few here to give you an idea how they come out. I hope to find the originals so I can have them scanned instead and be of much better quality.

Gunnar, Kjell, and Trygve in front. Gyda, my grandmother, and her sister Astrid behind the boys. Rex the dog, too. This picture was taken circa 1926.

The oldest boy here is John, and then the other boys are Olav, Oivind, and Gunnar (the youngest). Raghnild is the oldest girl, my grandmother Gyda is on the left, and Astrid is the youngest girl in the picture. Gunnar was born in 1917, so judging by his age in the picture, this was taken circa 1920. My grandmother was around 7 years old in this picture. Trygve was probably just born, and Kjell was yet to come.

Three sisters, Gyda, Raghnild, and Astrid

Gyda, Raghnild, and Astrid

Astrid and Gyda