Three years ago, I wrote a blog post about my biological great-grandfather, Johan “Oscar” Veum, even while asserting my belief that family is not biology. I still strongly believe this. You’d think then that I might leave this branch alone. But that’s the funny thing about genealogy; you tug at a thread and it tugs back. You pull out a knot and then feel compelled to untangle it.

My biological great-grandfather’s family has several of these knots. Untangling them has been enlightening. I’ll never have it all figured out, but I’ll walk you through some of my discoveries.

In 1921, Oscar Veum’s father Erik Veum traveled from Wisconsin to Norway with his daughters Dorothy and Emma. Erik was 57 then. Their mission was to see family and visit Erik’s old stomping grounds. Two blurbs in the Wisconsin Tobacco Reporter (predecessor of the Edgerton Reporter) describe the journey.

According to the Reporter, Erik, Dorothy and Emma visited Erik’s brother Johan and his family. Johan and his wife Karen were teachers in the Østerdalen area, northeast of Hamar.[1] (Erik’s other brother Petter had been a tailor but had died in 1886, aged 24, only one year after he had married and six weeks after becoming a father.[2])  

Erik, Dorothy and Emma also spent time with Erik’s mother Oline, who was 90 years old then. She died two years after their visit. As I wrote in my previous blog post, Oline is an interesting figure because she is listed in the Nes Bygdebok as the operator of two farms, unusual for a woman in that era. Her husband Embret (father to Petter, Erik and Johan) had died at the age of 45. After Embret’s death, Oline purchased the Aarlien farm. Norway’s 1875 Census shows her living on Aarlien with her three sons. Oline managed the farm with the help of a farmhand named Peder Hågensen from 1872 to 1876, and the two married in 1881. She purchased the Veum farm in 1880 and didn’t sell it until 1918, when she was 87.

Erik Veum’s father’s family from Løten

Erik’s father Embret (1824-1869) spent his childhood on a farm called Berg østre, located in the parish of Løten, just east of Hamar.[3] On Berg østre the family had been longstanding bygselmenn, meaning they leased the farm but the lease was inheritable. Indeed, the family’s connection to the lease goes back to 1672, when Lars Olsen Kolset (1638-1714) inherited the lease from his first wife’s family. One of Lars’s sons from his second marriage, Embret (1680-1767), inherited the lease and passed it on to his son Erik (1728-1782), who in turn passed it to his son Embret (1764-1808). This Embret’s eldest son, Erik, was only 13 at the time of his father’s death, so the lease transferred to Embret’s wife Ellen.[4]

Ellen remarried in 1809, and the man she wed, Ole Larsen, took over Berg østre. Ellen grew ill and died in 1813; but before she died, she and Ole agreed that the farm would pass to her son Erik when he was old enough to manage it. As Ellen’s affairs were being settled, Ole declared he would hand the farm over to Erik immediately, in exchange for a pension contract (føderåd). Erik struggled financially during those years, as times were tough in Norway following the Napoleonic Wars. When Erik died in 1833 (aged only 37), the family’s debts were so high that his widow Ingeborg Andersdatter had to auction off the lease and other property.

It’s not clear where Ingeborg and her four children moved after the auction. But we know that the eldest son, Embret, came into contact with Oline Marie Pedersdatter from the neighboring town of Elverum. They married and spent their first few years together in Hamar (then part of Vang parish). Oline and Embret had their three boys there before the family moved to Nes. My best guess is that they moved to Nes sometime between 1866 and 1869, and they may have lived on the Åsen farm on Helgøya in the years before Embret’s death.

Erik Veum’s mother’s family from Elverum

Embret’s wife (Erik’s mother) Oline Marie Pedersdatter was the fourth of six children born to Anne Olsdatter Koppang (1796-1875) and Peder Pedersen Bagstuen Løkting (1799-1854). The documentary evidence suggests that Oline descended from a prestigious family in Elverum. Her father Peder was an accomplished solider, who started his military career as a chief rifleman in the Østerdalen Battalion of the 1^st Akershus Infrantry Brigade and was promoted multiple times in his lifetime. He lived at the Kjærnebye (Kjerneby) farm in Øverleiret (today part of Elverum), a property which he had purchased. For a last name, Peder chose his mother’s family name Løkting – a prominent local family that had held the Lille-Grindalen, Østby and Grindalen farms for several generations.[5]

Willum and Dorthe’s third child, Ole Willumsen Løkting (1722-1768), was a First Lieutenant in the Sønnenfjell Ski Corps. He and his wife Siri Gulbrandsdatter Gobakken (1721-1801) first lived at Lille-Grindalen, and then Ole inherited Østby. Ole died when he was only 56, but Siri ran the farm for another five years.

Ole and Siri’s third child was Oleana Maria Olsdatter Løkting (1756-1832). Oleana became a midwife and married a farmer by the name of Peder Helgesen Bagstuen (1799-1854). Oleana and Peder’s fifth child was the soldier Peder Pedersen, father of Oline Marie Pedersdatter.

Some closing thoughts

I wonder if Erik Veum, visiting his family in Norway in 1921, was aware of the various twists and turns that led his parents from Løten and Elverum to Hamar and then to Nes. If Oline’s mind was still sharp at 90, did she impart any family knowledge to her son and granddaughters? If so, it is lost to time. We are left only with fragments gleaned from the historical record. Fortunately, Erik’s forbearers – particularly some in his mother’s line – had the kind of status that leaves a trail. This was not the case with Erik’s wife Bertha’s family, which was of humbler origin. I turn to them in the next post.

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[1] The Nes Bygdebok states that Johan also served as an organist and singer in the Åmot Church, was a member of the Åmot Mens’ Choir, and directed the Rena Workers’ Choir (Arbeidersangforening). See p. 761 in Nes bygdebok. 2 D. 3 : Bruks- og slektshistorie [Midtfjerdingen].

[2] See p. 790 in Nes bygdebok. 2 D. 3 : Bruks- og slektshistorie [Midtfjerdingen]

[3] Spellings varied greatly in these days. Erik is often written as Erich, and Embret can be Ingebret or Engebret. The town of Løten used to be spelled Leuthen. And the Løkting name (see section on Erik’s mother’s family) has many variants: Løchting, Lückting, Løgting, etc.

[4] Information in this paragraph and the next comes from J.B. Morthoff’s (1953) Løtenboka: garder og slekter (bind 2), pp. 711-716.

[5] Information for this section comes from an online article written by Bjørn Rasch, member of the Sør-Østerdal Slektshistorielag (https://www.sor-osterdalslekt.no/lochting.html#_ftn1), and I draw directly from the Elverum Bygdebok as well.

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