Happy New Year!
Born on this day in 1789, in Tretten, Norway: Jørgen Gudbrandsen Bjerkestuen, my third great-grandfather via Isaac Larson.
Jørgen’s son Samuel would become the patriarch of a large clan of Samuelsons in America, including my paternal great-grandmother. Read more …
Married 1 Jan 1849: Harry Eugene Colby and Susan Eldridge, my second great-grandparents on the maternal side .
Harry Colby was a prominent businessman in Onawa, Iowa, where I visited the cemetery in 2014. Read more … Susan Eldridge is on my “most wanted” page; I have found no evidence of who her parents might have been. Her obituary (not necessarily reliable) states that she was born in New York state on May 19, 1820, but I have found no documents or other evidence, from New York or elsewhere. The earliest official record so far is their marriage record.
