[#1940] Ship's lists

[Gjest Carol]

In looking at the ship's list from Oslo 1867-1930, we have found who appears to be my great grandmother and her son. However, there are two entrys, # 38080 which show Karen and her son John (986A & B), and entry # 41292 showing them and what appears to be another person, L. Hirsch (986 A,B, and M). My first question is we can not figure out where the Hansen name came from. Could it have been added to her name in error? My second question is which of these entires would be most correct, and if it is the second one, does that mean someone by the name of L. Hirsch was traveling with them? someone once suggested you could tell from these entries if the tickets were prepaid by someone. Is that so, and how can I find that information? Finally, I do not remember the entry number, but there is a Carl John* Strøm, coming over to the US, I believe in Nov., 1870 from Ness Rom. to Red Wing. Is there any chance that his age could be listed incorrectly? Thank you for any help.

[Gjest Tor Andersen]

It is common to give your full name on these pages or your subject might be removed.If you make a search with 'Number' 'Containing' 986 you will find that L. Hirch also is showing up twice. If they are in company I can't tell. It seems to be a common problem that some people are listed twice in these files.Since Karen is a widow my guess would be that she was married to Carl Hansen.

[Gjest Torun S. Soknes]

1. I have found who I believe to be Karen in the census of 1865, working as a servant at the farm Frilset østre (east) in Eidsvoll municipality in Akershus county, which is not very far from Nes municipality in the same county. She is listed as Karen Andrea Arnesdatter, born 1842. The owner of this farm is Hans Evensen, and his son is thus called Hansen for his last name. It may be far fetched, but this might be a reason why Karen has Hansen as her last name when she emigrated. You were free to take more or less any name you'd like prior to 1923. As another alternative, Hansen might be a name she obtained through marriage (she is a widow), but then her son ought to have this name also. His name is Carlsen, (indicating that his father's name was Carl - I'm sure you already know all this), so the marriage alternative might not be the answer either.2. Entry #38080 and #41292 are just double listings of the same people. Note the number in the column "merknad". Karen is no. 7116 and her son 7117, while L. Hirsch is no. 7312. In entry #38080, the emigrants are listed cronologically according to the number in "merknad" and date of registering, which is not the case for entry #41292. I think the M (as L. Hirsch is 986M) was the letter given to anyone "jumping the line", if you know what I mean. This, combined with the fact that L. Hirsch is from a different county than Karen, emigrating to a different state than her and paying for his own ticket, indicate that he was not travelling with Karen and her son. He would then have been 986C.3. Karen and her son had their tickets paid for in the US, ad you can see by the column "frakt". Instead of a sum of money it says "betalt", which means "paid". I regret to inform you that you that these records does not give any info as to who paid their tickets.4. On a general note, age is a relative thing... The person giving his age might have his year of birth wrong by a year or two, the person writing it down might hear wrong, and the person transcribing the lists to this data base might interpret the writing wrong. So age isn't the one factor from which you rule someone out.Hope this is of some help. Regards, Torun.

[Gjest Carol Maynard]

Thanks so much to both of you for your help. I am sorry that I didn't add my last name. I didn't think. I had noticed the people listed before Karen and her son had the last name of Hansen and wondered if in some way the transcriber picked up their last name and added it to hers. I know how difficult reading old documents can be, and I also know how hard it would be for me to read and then transcribe information without error. According to our family history, Karen had been married to a Carl Johnson Strom who came to the US before her and her son, and then died. So this entry fits her in every way, as does the census information cited by Torun. I had asked about the Strom entry and the age since the name fits, but not the age (there was another child born in 1866, and his being age 17 in 1870 doesn't fit). I can see where it is possible that he was born in 1837 and it looked like 1857; or his information is correct and the person in that entry is not the person I need to find. Thanks again for your help. Carol