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Sekse & Årvig Family Genealogy |
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Links Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum |
Why did our ancestors immigrate? I think I should explain why our ancestors immigrated. The land in Norway is beautiful it is full of mountains and rivers and forests, which leaves 3% of tillable land. After the potato was introduced to Norway the infant mortality rate shot up and people survived when before they would have perished. Which left more mouths to feed than the land could support. In the past in Norway people would plant their crops after winter ended (they had a 9 month long winter) and they would wait and pray for harvest, unfortunately sometimes winter came before harvest and they lost their crops. To make it through the tough winters they had to scrape bark from trees grind it into a four and mix it with whatever harvest they had and try to survive. As you can imagine it had to be tough. One of the interesting things about our family is that in the 16 and 1700's our family lived to be in their 70's to 90's. This is interesting because at the average life expectancy was only 50 years old. We come from a very healthy stock I should say. Although many of our ancestors immigrated many did not. We still have some cousins in Norway. I have been in contact with them and they would like to remain in contact with us. Anyone interested in contacting them drop me a line and I will give you their information!They speak very good english so don't worry about trying to speak Nynorsk! PAGE 1 PAGE 2 PAGE 4 |