Are you thinking about writing your family history and wondering if it will make any difference? I am here to tell you that it is important and will make a difference. Please do it.
Back in January of 1920, one of my grandmother Lydia’s first cousins, a woman named Julia Dragseth, sat down and wrote her family history. She called it “My Heritage.” At the time, Julia was just shy of her twenty-third birthday, and according to the 1920 census, she was still living with her parents and siblings on the family farm near Eldred, Polk County, Minnesota.
Julia was the daughter of Sarah Locken, my great grandmother Inga Locken’s oldest sister. The Locken sisters immigrated separately from Sunndal, Møre Og Romsdal, Norway, as did several of their siblings. Sarah arrived in Minnesota first, in 1892, and married Andrew Dragseth in 1894. Julia was their second child, born in 1897.
Inga came to Minnesota in 1901 at the age of 28 with brother Clarence Magnus who was 10 years her junior. Inga's first child, nine-year old John Eliasen (aka John Locken), did not travel with her but immigrated to Polk County by the time of the 1910 census. Within a year of her arrival in Eldred, Inga married my great grandfather Erik Palm, a Swedish man 12 years her senior who was a blacksmith. Inga and Erik went on to have seven children, including my grandmother Lydia in 1910. She was the second to last of the Palm children.
Lydia’s cousin Julia being one of the older offspring of the Locken siblings was in a position to know the people that she wrote about in 1920, or to have heard first-hand accounts of them. Her family history diligently discusses each member of the family in turn, all the way back to her great grandparents on both her paternal Dragseth line and her maternal Locken line. For each person, she offers information about where they lived, spouses, children, siblings, and their general disposition. It reads like a family tree in narrative form.
Julia’s nineteen-page family history is a treasure trove of information about my Locken ancestors. It is written in an efficient and almost objective voice that provides a snapshot of the sensibilities of the 1920s. I repeat – the 1920s! This family history document is 102 years old this month.
Julia’s family history was handed down through the family over the years, mostly by happenstance as far as I can tell. Based on old letters, I believe my grandmother received it in the 1970s from one of her other cousins. My mom later received a copy from yet another cousin in 2011.
I will admit that I am delighted by Julia’s family history. It makes me happy to read it. Her writing offers details about the lives and personalities of my ancestors that cannot be duplicated with genealogical records.
Below are some examples from Julia’s work:
Mother was born and raised in Sundal, Norway, a part of Norway very hilly and rocky…
Mother’s folks were all farmers—their interests were centered mainly in what pertained to the country. They were all hard-working people; the soil in that part of the country did not yield much return for the great amount of labor they were forced to exert. They had little time for recreation and for the development of the finer elements and traits of their make-up for self development and social development. There was always a struggle for existence…
On mother’s side there are no family diseases or abnormalities except that all her relatives and ancestors with a few exceptions have been early gray haired and are prone to be nervous. Their stature is inclined to be rather small and slight, and their complexion is fair. Their length of life ranges between sixty and eighty years. Because work has always had pre-eminence over everything else in the lives of mother’s relatives, their special mental and moral traits were not given a chance to develop. They all had average intelligence and were rather favorable toward all movements that were forwarded for the betterment of their condition; as, school and church. Living in the bleak and barren mountains, there were few great movements which stirred the people.
In describing her maternal grandfather John (aka Joe) Storlokken (my 2x great grandfather), who lived from 1836 to 1900 in Sunndal, Julia wrote:
Mother’s father, Joe Storlokken, lived on the Svisdal “gaard.” He was a farmer by profession. In winter when there was little farm work to do, he would travel from farm to farm and sew. He was a man who took a great deal of interest in his home. The children thought it was great fun when he came home winter nights, after having been away several days. Then he would play with them though he were a child. Altho he was always sickly, he was very good natured, and he was seldom angry. He was fairly brilliant, and liked very much to read and sing, but for this he had very little time. In church affairs he had average interest. His religious life was one mainly of emotion and not of activity. He loved the country and outdoor sports. He was a herder until he was fifteen years old and then he became a tailor and farmer. Grandfather was quick and ambitious, was well liked by his associates and was a very sociable person. . . He died of lung fever at the age of sixty-three.
Grandfather’s father, my great grandfather, lived on the Svisdal “gaard”. Mother never saw him for he was killed by being run over by a sand load… In appearance he was short and fleshy and hunchback.
Julia similarly details all of John’s full and half-siblings, his parents, uncles, aunts, and their descendants. She also writes about John’s wife, my 2x great grandmother Marit Thoresdatter (1847-1912), and her siblings. For instance:
Mother’s mother, my grandmother, was dark, short and medium fleshy. She was quick, energetic and sharp tempered. Her interest religion was more than average and her intelligence was greater than average. She was rather forward and she liked the society of others. Grandmother was grandfather’s second wife. Her mother died when she was very young. Nothing is known about her mother and father except that her father was a miner from Lesja.
Of John’s children, including sisters Sarah and Inga, Julia provides more details. She describes each of the children and their descendants. About her mother Sarah, she wrote:
Mother is very small and slight in stature. She is fair complexed, brown hair and blue eyes. Mother is kind hearted but inclined to be irritable and fidgety due a great deal perhaps to nervousness. Mother is quick and energetic – she is always busy with something – preferably out of doors. Carpentry work is what she especially enjoys. Mother prefers working in the open air to working indoors. She is very sociable and well liked. She is forward and aggressive and has a good deal of ability, initiative and originality…
Mother came first when she was twenty-five years old… Her brothers and sister followed in quick succession… Mother had thought of coming to this country when she was twenty-three years old, but her folks could not bear to see her go. Two years later she broke away from her home ties to venture forth alone across the ocean… The first few months were months of intense lonesomeness and homesickness. Mother vowed that she would save as much as she could of her first earnings and go back to Norway as soon as possible. But money enough to buy a ticket was not made in a short time, and when money enough had been made the first few pangs of homesickness were gone…
As mother is the only one of her brothers and sisters living on a farm, they always come to visit with us during the summer months. My uncles do not care to live and work in the country, they think there is too much toil connected with such a life. They had enough of country life when they were in Norway. Country life there was one of toil. Altho they do not enjoy farm work, they do enjoy immensely being in the country. My cousins think it great fun to be with making hay, carrying lunch to the men in the fields and feeding the chickens.
Julia shared the following about my great grandmother Inga:
Aunt Inga came to live with Mother when she came from Norway. She married Mr. Palm shortly after she came and made her home in Eldred for a number of years. If any person has a right to be called good natured she certainly had. Wherever she lived she had a host of friends. She made friends very easily. Altho her time was always filled with hard work she was never the less cheerful and would always have time to chat with whomever she met… Aunt Inga died in July 1917 following an operation. Mr. Palm is now living at Winger, Minnesota. There are seven children – Sena, Victor, Hjalmer, Idolph, Alma, Lydia and William. The children are not grown yet, but so far they have displayed average talents. They are all active and lively.
As the above examples show, Julia took the time to address the personal characteristics of her relatives. Some of her descriptions, by our standards today, might seem a bit direct. But for me, as a descendant of these individuals, I find the descriptions overall charming and invoking a sense of empathy for my ancestors. That said, I would dearly love to know, for instance, if Julia’s mother Sarah read the excerpt about her being “inclined to be irritable and fidgety,” and what she might have said to Julia about it!
In addition to providing personal insights, Julia’s family history has also turned out to be a helpful resource for my genealogy research. No, it’s not a well-documented report written in conformance with the genealogical proof standard. And yes, as a serious researcher I do take it with a “grain of salt.” The genealogical facts need to be verified. But Julia’s detailed descriptions of relationships have helped me sort out the confusion between similarly named (unrelated) persons, and her writing does contain important details about locations and surnames that have helped me focus my research for Norwegian genealogical records.
As an example, I am currently using Julia’s information as a reference for research into Norwegian records related to my 3x great-grandparents. Her family history provides a slightly different take on the siblings of these ancestors than what appears in subsequent information prepared by other family members over the years. Using all this family knowledge as a starting point, and with the advantage of online records, I will likely be able to reconcile the information and provide more clarity for the family about these individuals using Norwegian records.
The bottom line is that, whether she realized it or not, Julia bestowed a gift upon future generations of her family. Would she have ever imagined the course her little booklet would take over the last 102 years? Or that her writing would inspire family historians throughout the generations? We will never know. But all of us can take her lead and set out to write what we know about our families.
It doesn’t have to be a detailed description of three generations like Julia chose to do. It could be an email or letter to a cousin, a handwritten family chart, photographs of family landmarks posted online, a two-page type-written description of grandparents and their children – all of which various Locken cousins have written over the years following in Julia’s footsteps. These types of simple writings help form the family’s understanding of its collective history and foster the sense of belonging that we all hope to find through our genealogy research.
So, get busy. Write it down. Share what you know. Do what you can to preserve the stories, as Julia did. One hundred years from now your writings may inspire distant cousins like Julia’s inspire me. Future generations will thank you!
Please Note: For the benefit of the Dragseth and Locken families, I am sharing Julia’s entire 1920’s family history on my website under the “Genealogy” tab or click here.
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