Researching Ommund Ommundsen (1820-1895)

Ed's Day Wednesday

Dear FOLKS,

Last week I introduced you to Ommund Ommundsen (1820-1895). Ommund was my late cousin Ed Ostrom's 2x great-grandfather, and for me Ommund was my 3x great-grandfather. You can learn more of Ommund including a timeline of his life's events by clicking here.

This week I want to share with you a dilemma I ran across while researching Ommund. The background is that I was very new to family research. I was very excited that I had learned approximately where in Norway this man lived. I had actually been trying to learn more about Ommund's son Olaus, who was the young Norwegian who immigrated to the U.S. and would eventually become our ancestor.

One of the first things I learned of Norwegian genealogy studies was the bygdebok (bygdeboker is plural). These books are unique in that they cover (1) the history of an area in Norway and (2) they often cover information of the generations of people who lived on the farms within the area.

If you want to read more about Norwegian farm books (bygdeboker) and their significance, a good article is written by genealogy blogger Martin Roe at this link http://martinroe.com/blog/index.php/2016/01/28/what-is-a-bygdebok-2/

The book that I was told contained my family is the "Lunds Historie I : Gårdens og Slektens Liv" by Ingjald Mehus, written in 1961.  A close translation of the title is Lund History Book 1 : The Life of the Farm and the Family.

I will refer to the bygdebok where our Ostrom family is from as the Lund Farm Book. This farm book is organised by the various local farm's assigned number (gardnummer). These farm numbers provide the chapter number within the book. My family comes from Gard Number 42 - Austreim, on pages 605-626, near the end of the book. While this book is written in Norwegian there is consistent use of abbreviations and such that I could make out many of the life events and their dates.

Here is the page where Ommund's information starts.

IMAGE: Part of page 621 in
the Lund Farm Book that tells
of Ommund Ommundsen.

The point that I am writing about is the date on the first line. The book says "F. 29-4-1818...." which means Ommund was born (født) on 29 April 1818. So for a while, I was content that I had found his birth date. As time passed, I learned about the Norwegian church records as they had become available to see online at the Norwegian digital archives website, The National Archives of Norway (https://digitalarkivet.no/en/). I began to learn how to look events up there and I was seeing digitized microfilm images of the actual parish records. But I couldn't find Ommund where I expected to see him.

I found a conflict in the evidence. Our Ommund Omundsen was actually born on 9 Jul 1820, and baptized on 30 Jul 1820. But how did I prove that? This I stumbled upon while browsing for his birth/baptismal record. Here is what I found.

IMAGE: Page 21 of the Lund Parish register
arrow pointing to Line 14, Birth and Baptism
entry for Omund Omundsen in 1820. [1]

Snippet: Omund Omundsen's entry #14.

-------- translation begins --------

No. 14

Date of Birth - 9 July [1820 inferred from column heading]

Name of Child - Omund

Date of baptism - 20 July  [1820 inferred from column heading]

Occupation and name of parents - Farmer Omund Knutsen and Berta Larsdatter / Østrem

[The rest is the name of witnesses and is too difficult to make out.]

 -------- translation ends --------

Source:

"Parish Register, Birth and Baptism Records," National Archives of Norway, (http://www.digitalarkivet.no : accessed 12 July 2012), Lund in Lund Parish register (official) Number A5 (1815-1833), Birth and baptism records 1820, page 21; showing Ommund Ommundson on line #14. Quicklink: https://media.digitalarkivet.no/en/kb20070621630759

Conclusion:

Other of his records help to confirm this date -

Referring back to the Lund Farm Book, page 621:

First there is G.1, the event of his first marriage (giftermål). The actual church record agrees. This occurred in 1847 and it tells he was 28.

then G.2, his second marriage in 1850. This also agrees with the register that states he was 30.

and his third marriage, G.3 in 1855. This too agrees with the church record and it says he was 36.

Next I looked at Ommund's brother's birth record. Andreas Omundson was born on 30 Nov 1817. If we are to accept the Lund Farm Book's birth date for Ommund, that would place these two brothers as only being five months apart in age. A difficult thing to do today and in this period of history, not possible.

Also Ommund's death record in the parish register tells he was born in 1820.

Within the Lund church register I did find another Omund Omundsen born on 29 April 1818, but he was the son of Omund Knudsen and Eileen Tortsensdatter from the farm Hove. A different fellow all together and likely who the book's author became confused with.

It appears the Ommund Ommundsen from Østrem, Farm #42, whose birth date given in the Lund bygdebok on page 621 is in error. The two Omunds were confused in the book's entry. Our guy's entry should read 09 July 1820.

This error type is found in many instances while researching family history. It doesn't reflect poorly on this book at all, this could be the only error in the hundreds, possibly thousands of others that were quoted. As I have stated before, when doing family history research, it is advised to check and then check some more and to gather as many documents as you can... This is called a reasonably exhaustive search of relevant documents.

Hope you are having a good week and enjoyed our close look into this documentation conflict. I look forward to our next time.

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The URL for this post is: https://homefolktales.blogspot.com/2017/10/researching-ommund-ommundsen-1820-1895.html.

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