Wednesday, November 30, 2011

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 181: Visiting Liland Farm

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I recently scanned some photographs from our 1999 trip to Scandinavia, including a visit to Oslo and Voss in Norway. I am posting some of these photos.

This is a photograph of a visit with two of the current residents of Liland farm on the western end of the Vangsvatnet lake:


On our 1999 trip to Scandinavia, we were blessed to connect with Bjorg Liland, who was our tour guide in Voss, and had family connections with the owners of Liland farm at the west end of the lake.  Linda's maiden name is Leland, so this was the farm from which her family name was adopted in the 1870s.

The persons in the photo above are (from left):  Linda (Leland) Seaver; Inge Liland (Liland farm resident); Bjorg Liland (tour guide), Guri Liland (Liland farm resident). 

My notes about this visit include:

"Bjorg had arranged a meeting with Inge Liland (age 90, who had the Voss bygdebok, and was sharp as a tack!) and her daughter Guri Liland. Bjorg is a 4th cousin-in-law of Guri's. We did not go to the working farm, since the workers were away, but went to the new house next to the working farm - it was a beautiful home! We had a very pleasant visit with them including a lunch.

"I got out Linda's Voss ancestry list and Inge looked carefully through the Liland section of the bygdebok. She could not find a direct tie to the ancestry list, which was not surprising. I offered my conclusion that Ivar Torgerson (brother of Sjur Torgerson) married Kari Larsdatter of Liland farm, and that the extended family adopted the Leland name in America. She seemed to accept that, and noted that there were always farm workers who were not part of the direct family. I elicited some genealogy information from her about the Liland family history after the bygdebok entries to try to understand the line better. When Inge read further in the ancestry list, she got excited when she saw mention of some of the other farms and we concluded that Linda was probably a distant cousin to Inge and the Liland farm people after all. We took some pictures with the "cousins" and thanked them for their hospitality."

This was really one of the highlights of the trip for Linda, and she finally understood the power, and fun, of connecting with distant cousins.

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