My passion for genealogy began in 1997, the year my father died. Shortly before his death he had received a package of family history information from someone named Tom Larsen in Oslo, Norway. Dad was so excited about receiving all this information that I actually tucked a copy into his casket before he was buried. But it took awhile for me to take a closer look at the contents. It was so much easier to begin my genealogical searches on the internet with my mother's English-speaking early American ancestors about whom so much was available online as early as 1997.
Finally getting to the point where I wanted to tackle my Norwegian branches, I realized just what a treasure Tom Larsen had gifted our family. I attempted to write to him at the address in Oslo, but by then he was no longer at the address given. (Years later, he turned up as one of my DNA matches and I was so delighted to finally be able to communicate with him and thank him before his untimely passing.)
This is a small portion of the tree Tom sent to Dad:
 |
| Top Portion of Family Tree prepared by Tom Larsen |
The 1990s were early days for software for family trees. Tom's tree is half printed in pale blue early printer ink and half hand-drawn. Still, he manages to convey a whole lot of detail in his tree, giving me a good place to start when doing my own research. The earliest ancestor in this tree is Oluf Lunde, the father of Gulbrand Lunde born c.1585/95. The most recent listings were my grandmother Louise Nilsen and one of her sisters. He listed his sources, though I didn't immediately appreciate the significance of that.
 |
| Tom Larsen, last section of tree |
Tom also provided another type of report with the earliest ancestor being Ingebjørg Helgesdtr Frøborn born before 1458. As a new genealogist, I didn't know what this report was nor how much information it provides.
 |
| Tom's ahnentafel report, oldest section |
(This report was originally printed on that continuous paper feed with holes along the edges for feeding through that old-style printer!)
Not knowing the name for the report or how it worked, I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what it all meant, even going so far as to having a Norwegian-speaking acquaintance label the male and female names. The number assigned to each person in this ahnentafel report would have told me that - to find a father, you double the person's number (making it an even number) and to find the mother, you double the person's number and add 1 (making it an odd number). Oh, the useful things we learn in our genealogy voyage! But this was the beginning.
