Lögberg-Heimskringla - 22.07.1994, Blaðsíða 19

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 22. júlí 1994 • 19
Searching Our lcelandic Roots
By Lou Howard
Usually, when one arrives at the
stage in life when there is a
shorter period of time left than
what has passed, thoughts start coming
about ancestors and how one got to be
here, and why.
When the thoughts about our ances-
tors started to come to me, I called the
Lögberg-Heimskringla office and
enquired about the name of someone
who could help me and my wife
Marjorie search our Icelandic roots.
That is how Nelson Gerrard came into
our life. Shortly thereafter two very
thorough, professional reports were
received tracing my line through my
mother, and my wife’s line through her
father. My mother is Elínborg
Asmundsson which was Anglicized to
Ausmundson, who is now a healthy 96
year old and living in the Lion’s Manor
in Selkirk. Marjorie’s father Jóhann
Sigbjömsson, was bom at Ljótsstaðir in
the Vopnafjörður region of
Northeastern Iceland. The family name
was anglicized to Benson when they
settled in Selkirk Manitoba.
The next step, again through the
Lögberg-Heimskringla, was to contact
Pedersen World Tours Inc, who adver-
tise in this weekly paper, and we joined
a tour to Iceland to be there for the
fiftieth anniversary on June 17, 1994.
Through Pedersen we asked for and
obtained an English speaking Icelandic
tour guide. Inga Rósa Þórðardóttir,
from Egilsstaðir, asked for information
on our family history, and I sent the
first 12 pages of both our genealogy
reports. She researched the locations
herself and made arrangements for us
to see many places mentioned in our
past Icelandic history.
When we arrived in Seyðisfjörður,
Inga was there to greet us, and for the
next three days she took us to the
Borgarfjörður area where my folks
came from and then to the
Vopnafjörður area where my wife’s
folks came from. I am a second genera-
tion and she a fírst generation “Westem
Icelander” as they called us in Iceland.
She arranged that we had lunch on
the farm that my grandfather was living
on when he emigrated from Jökulsá to
Canada in 1887. The farm has an offi-
cial list of all the owners going back to
1703, and from the years 1863 to 1887
the names were identical to those sup-
plied by Nelson Gerrard.
The present owners were very inter-
ested to see the listing of my relatives as
being the same as those of some of the
previous owners of their farm.
In Vopnafjörður Inga had found a
second cousin of my wife. He is 90
years old, but was most interesting as
he knew her family very well and
brought out a well aged bottle of
Brennivín which we used to toast the
relatives on that side of the family!
Inga arranged that we visit at farms
where the genealogy shows that
Marjorie’s relatives were bom, or were
living there for many years. The most
amazing visit was to the little Lutheran
church at Hof, where a service was
held at 1:00 p.m. honouring National
Day. This church is where my wife’s
father was baptized, and both her
grandparents and her great grandpar-
ents were married. There was a baptism
during that service on June 17, 1994
which seemed so fitting for our visit.
After the service, Inga showed us
gravestones of relatives buried in the
church yard. Three generations of
Marjorie’s family had attended that
church.
When one looks at the actual farms (
where grandparents were born, lived
and died, and hears about the devastat-
ing emption of volcano Askja in 1875,
and imagines how the farm land was
laid in ruins throughout the North-
eastern part of Iceland, it makes all
their suffering come alive. We can see
how the animals could not find feed
and sickened, and how threats of star-
vation drove out our ancestors to find a
new life in Canada.
It was a memorable trip for us, with
thanks for the help of the Lögberg-
MESSUBOÐ
Fyrsta Liitcrvka
Kirkja
Pastor Ingthor I. Isfeld
1030 a.m. The Service followed by
Sunday School & Coffee hour.
First Lutheran Church
580 Victor St., Winnipeg, MB
R3G 1R2 Ph. 772-7444
Heimskringla. For those who
are interested in leaming more
about their Icelandic roots,
our experience might be a
means of tieing down the loose
ends of your genealogy charts.
Top Photo:
A sod house in Borgarfjöröur
adjacent to a large rock outcrop-
ping where it is known that the
fairy king and queen live.
Jökulsá in Borgarfjöröur the farm
from which Guömundur
Ásmundsson emigrated to
Canada with his parents
Ásmundur Ásmundsson and Elín
Katrín Benediktsdóttir.
THE
ICELANDIC
CANADIAN
Quarterly Magazine
Featuring many wonderful articles about our heritage, such as:
4 lcelandic Achievementby Terry Lacey of the University of lceland
4 Arts Encounter Interview with David Arnason and Heather Ireland with
CBC host Jacqui Good
4 The Temperance Movement in the lcelandic Community by Herborg
Thomasson
4 Keeping Our Heritage Alive and Well by Kristiana Magnusson
4 Profile: Lee Syms by Kristine Perlmutter
4 Poetry, short stories and book reviews
The Spring 1994 issue has a woman's theme and the Summer 1994 issue
highlights our cousins in North Dakota and Minnesota
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