Good golly, it’s been 10 days since I made a post. I haven’t been idle, but perhaps negligent. Remember Ragnhild Kjorstad? The “Ragnhild letter” is featured in the Sources section. A few months ago, she sent me back an annotated copy of the letter, with some citations penciled in. It took me this long, but I finally correlated the notations with “the” bygdebok: Garder og Slekter i Fron by Einar Hovdhaugen. As usual, there are some answers but even more questions. If I can resolve even a few of these questions, the bygdebok will be elevated to the Sources section.
Lars Poulsen is listed in the census of 1801 on the Flaate farm, age 9 years. His mother is listed as Mari Pedersdatter, widow, age 54. We’ll leave his siblings be for now.
Here is the selection from the bygdebok dealing with Lars’ parents:
Very rough translation: Paul Sveinsen bought Flaataa in 1776 from children of Hans Hansen [by guardians?] for 580 [money]. He first married with Kari Iversdtr. and [next?]-married with Mari Pedersdtr. Paul Sveinsen died in 1797. He was [known??] from Litlgard.
I’m still looking for translation of some key words here. But, since he married (2nd marriage?) Mari Pedersdatter, and died before the 1801 census, I can easily accept that he was the father of Lars Paulsen. And I think (as Ranghild does) that he came from the Litlgard (Lillegard) farm in Nord-Fron, per the last sentence.
Unfortunately, there is another Paul Sveinsen who held the Litlgard farm from 1760 until at least 1790, according to the same bygdebok. He has a different wife, and death date (as well as a specified birth date), so must not be the same guy. This throws the previous three generations of our ancestry into doubt. Stay tuned.
[...] prior to about 1800. What information we do have comes from individual farm records collected by a historian of the region, which are hit-and-miss, to put it [...]