Lögberg-Heimskringla - 10.09.2004, Qupperneq 7

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 10. september 2004 • 7
The Internet
has made the
difference
A great interest in genealogy is one of the
factors that has kept North Americans of lce-
landic descent together. There seems to be
a genealogist in every lcelandic community
and one of them is Malcolm Olafson.
Steinþór Guðbjartsson had a chat with him
in Montreal and learned about his family.
Olafur Oddsson and
Kristbjörg Antoníus-
dóttir, Malcolm’s pater-
nal great grandparents, emi-
grated with their two children
and Kristbjörg’s parents
Antoníus Eiríksson and Ingvel-
dur Jóhannesdóttir to Canada
from Kollaleira in Reyðar-
fjörður, Iceland, in 1879. Their
son Ólafur Ólafson, Malcolm’s
grandfather, born in 1893, was
the youngest of his parents’
eight children bom in Manito-
ba but two were born in Ice-
land. Ólafur Ólafson’s son,
Haraldur Olafson, was bom in
Riverton in 1918 and lives with
his wife Elizabeth, who is of
English descent, close to
Toronto. They have four chil-
dren. Malcolm lives in Montre-
al, David in Prince Edward
Island, Jane in Tulsa, Okla-
homa, and Ian north of Toron-
to, where their parents live as
well.
“My father graduated in
engineering from the Universi-
ty of Manitoba in 1941 and
then he joined the army,” Mal-
colm recalls. “After the war my
parents settled in Ontario, and I
was born in Hamilton,
Ontario.”
Genealogy a great hobby
Malcolm worked for Bell
for a long time. He is a com-
puter consultant and the treas-
urer of the Icelandic Canadian
Club of Quebec (ICC-Q). In
his spare time he sits by his
computer and researches
genealogy.
“I am very interested in the
family tree, and when asked, I
try to help others to fínd infor-
mation about their ancestors,”
he says. “The Internet has real-
ly made the difference, and it is
amazing how much informa-
tion there is. That is where, for
example, I found the 1816 cen-
sus, and it will be very helpful
PHOTO: STEINÞÓR GUÐBJARTSSON
Malcolm Olafson has created a genealogical centre in his home in Montreal.
if the other censuses going
back to 1700 become available
there. I am not that type of a
person who would sit at the
archives and go through piles
of papers and books but I can
browse on the Internet for
hours. There the information is
easily available. Slowly but
progressively I am putting the
genealogy together with the
help of information from Nel-
son Gerrard’s book and from
the Internet, but I still need
some data.
“For example, my great-
grandfather’s name, Ólafur
Oddsson, is in the book show-
ing the names of all the people
who immigrated from Iceland
but no ship is mentioned with
his name. I cannot find him on
the ship’s list coming into Que-
bec City. I can, however, find
Cold Light
in Montreal
One of the featured films
at the recent World Film Festi-
val in Montreal was the Ice-
landic film Kaldaljós (Cold
Light), directed by Hilmar
Oddson.
The film, which was a co-
production between lceland,
Norway, The United Kingdom
and Germany, tells the story of
Grímur Hermundarson (Ingvar
Eggert Sigurðsson), who is
plagued by a premonition of
the future but fails to act on it.
Kaldaljós won the Catholic
“Signis” Award at the Mar del
Plata festival in Argentina this
year.
all information about Einar
Jónsson, my great-grandfather
on my father’s mother’s side,
from the time he left Iceland,
his arrival in Glasgow and his
arrival in Quebec City. And
they left together.”
Genealogy is a time-con-
suming hobby. Malcolm has
the time and enjoys every
minute of it. “When I was
younger I did not think about
these things, but I have devoted
a lot of time into this hobby for
the last five years or since we
started the club. This is a great
hobby.”
The club a big factor
The chapters of the Ice-
landic National League of
North America play an impor-
tant role in preserving the Ice-
landic heritage. It can be hard
at times keeping them going, as
was seen in Montreal about 20
years ago, but their importance
is often overlooked.
The ICC-Q was reestab-
lished in 1999 and soon Mal-
colm became the treasurer. “It
is not a complicated job since
we do not handle lots of
money,” he says. When he
lived in Toronto he participated
in the Icelandic Canadian Club
of Toronto and when he moved
to Montreal in 1978 he became
involved in the old club in
Montreal before it becaine less
active.
“Although I was a member,
of the Toronto and Montreal
clubs, I did not think seriously
about the genealogy until
David Franklin and Susan
Stephenson got us going with
the club here a few years ago.”
Kollaleira on the map
Ólafur Ólafson went once
to Iceland, when he was 75
years old. Malcolm visited
Reykjavík in 1988 and is plan-
ning a second trip next sum-
mer. “I want to take my parents
to Iceland and see where we
came from,” he says. “I did not
know much about my ancestors
when I went to Iceland in 1988
but now I have collected a lot
of information and I will take it
along. I don’t want to miss
Kollaleira. I want to see the
land my great grandfather Óla-
fur Oddsson, his wife, her par-
ents, and their two children
left.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF IMDB.COM
Ingvar Eggert Siguðsson stars as the clairvoyant Grímur in
Hilmar Oddsson’s Cold Light.
AREYOU PROUDOF YOUR ICELAN DIC HERITAGE?

Do you want to see it preserved for your
children and grandchildren?
Are you a member ofyour local lcelandic club?
Don’t know where they are or who to contact?
Check out www.inlofna.org
or phone or email Rosa in our INL office for more information.
Telephone: (204) 642-5897 email: inl@ecn.mb.ca
Ifyou don’t have a club in your area
but are interested in forming a club call Rosa.
WOUÍDN'T YOUR AMMA AND AFI BE PROUD?
Visit us on the web at http://www.logberg.com