I have some time and I have been going over old emails from Wilda Obey from last year. I have been saving these emails to add the information once I had all the basic family tree information input into the database and organized and checked. Bit by bit, I hope to add the relevant information to the database and to the blog for everyone to share in.
Kristoffer Kristenson and Ase Amundsdotter lived on Le Farm which is in Arnafjord of Vik in the Vik Bygdebok.
All 3 farms where are relatives lived over the years are in Vik. Vangsnes is a peninsula near the main part of Vik, which is called Vik, Vik. Vangsnes is now the main ferry terminal to cross the Sognefjord from Vik to Balestrand and Leikanger. It is a very large farm with many sub farms = many different families living there. Le and Nistad are in the Arnafjord part of Vik. This is a remote, mountainous, beautiful area with small farms with only one or a few families living at each farm. However Lie/Lee is a very common name, meaning meadow or pasture, and possibly the Lee in question is a sub farm of a larger farm.
Bygdbok is bok = book and bygd= a rural community. These books list all of the farms in one area of Norway by farm. They usually start at about 1600 and mention the name of the farmers there then. They mention his wife and children and usually give some dates, by year only. They tell where the children went or who they married if they left the farm. It continues on with who lived at the farm down to the early 1900s. The bygdebok doesn't list exact dates, and sometimes doesn't list all children.
Page 206 of the Vik i Sogn bygdabok has the Le farm (in Arnafjord) and says something like:
After the black death the church at Flete owned part of Le and the pastor the other part, and there may have been other owners. The first farmer here that I know of is Johannes in 1603, then Lasse in 1611 and 1620s; in 1645 there were 2 farmers here: Kristoffer Kristofferson with wife Asa Amundsdatter, and Ivar with wife Dorte Knutsdotter.
(That was more or less my a translation with my self taught Norwegian. Note it has Kristofferson in this paragraph but the next paragraph has Kristenson. WO)
Le farm #1: on this farm in 1645 has Kristoffer Kristenson and he was here until 1701. He was born in 1610.
He had many sons, but I don't know of all of them:
Kristen went to Dalsvaer,
Gunnar had a part of Le for a time;
Sjur died unmarried;
Hans got the farm after his father;
Amund got farm 2 on Le.
(This is what the author is saying. Next is something about these brothers, but I don't quite understand it. I think it may say these brothers weren't getting along with each other. If you printed this page from the bygdabok, perhaps you could get someone from Sons of Norway - in Indiana or MN that is, to read it for you.
Bygdebok/bygdaboks are in many libraries in the U.S. You can get lists online. In MN St. Olaf College in Northfield has a very large collection. U of MN in the Twin Cities has some. LDS library in Salt Lake City has some, U of ND ak (or is it ND State - the northern one, the one not in Fargo) has many. Perhaps in IN the Fort Wayne library might have some. I have no idea.WO)
Note: Our family tree database does not include someone named Amund as a child of Kristoffer Kristenson. One more thing to check out. But the children's mother is Ase Amundsdotter, so Amund could be her father or a child we do know now about who was named after her father.
