The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2001, Page 7

Vol. 56 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
133
eigners when they accuse us of being
descended from slaves and scoundrels, if we
know for certain the truth about our ances-
try. And for those who want to know ancient
lore and how to trace genealogies, its better to
start at the beginning than come in at the mid-
dle. Anyway, all civilized nations want to
know about the origins of their own society,
and the beginnings of their own race.
It seems that the Icelandic people heeded
this passage closely over the centuries. They
possess one of the most well documented
genealogical records among Western
European nations. Many people who are not
of Icelandic descent are amazed to find out
that we can trace our ancestry back to the
Viking Age and even farther.
When the Icelandic settlers came to
North America at the end of the nineteenth
and beginning of the twentieth century, they
recorded their experiences. The wide spread
literacy among the immigrants led to a histo-
ry that focussed on ordinary people and on
their families, occupations, homes, customs,
joys and sorrows. This body of work forms
an amazing record of the early history of the
Icelandic settlers in their new home. After the
immigration period had ended, family and
community history continued to appear in
the newspapers, Logberg and Heimskringla,
the annual Almanak Olafur S. Thorgeirsson,
the Icelandic Canadian Magazine and a host
of other publications. Even later, the plethora
of local history books published all over
North America added to the wealth of infor-
mation about the lives of people of Icelandic
descent across the continent
How it came to be
The Book of Life
About a month ago, I received an email
from a person in Calgary who told me that
she had reason to believe that we were relat-
ed. After comparing notes we found that we
were in fact related through a mutual ancestor
who was bom in the early nineteenth centu-
ry. To the general public, investigating such a
distant connection might seem strange, but to
many people of Icelandic descent this kind of
correspondence is not at all unusual. Over
125 years after the first groups of settlers left
their island home in search of a future in a
new land, the ties between many of their
descendants have remained strong. During
the past year and a half I have had the good
fortune to hear many similar stories of the
remarkable network of connections that exist
between the far-flung descendants of
Icelandic immigrants in Canada and the
United States.
In June of 2000, I was hired by the
United Icelandic Appeal to create the Book
of Life, a computer based collection of the
family histories of Canadians and Americans
of Icelandic descent. At the time I had just
completed my fourth year of a Bachelor of
Arts Honours degree in History at the
University of Winnipeg. That year, I had
written three different papers on aspects of
the history of New Iceland. Needless to say I
was thrilled at the prospect of working on the
Book of Life, a project that seemed to coin-
cide directly with my academic research
interests. Looking back on the time I have
spent on the project, I can say that along with
a greater knowledge of the sources and meth-
ods for researching and writing the history of
the Icelanders in North America, I have also
gained a much more profound sense the
shared culture and heritage that connects
people who live in such different places as
Spanish Fork, Utah, Markerville, Alberta,
Lundar, Manitoba, and a thousand points in
between.
I invite you to visit the website at
www.bookoflifeonline.com
<http://www.bookoflifeonline.com/> to
learn more about this exciting new project.
Read, explore, sign the guest book, and find
out how you can include your family story in
the Book of Life. Your comments, on what
you liked or what you felt needs improve-
ment, are greatly appreciated. With your
help, we are hoping to build an internet
resource that people of Icelandic descent
everywhere can be proud of. The United
Icelandic Appeal is presently chaired by Dan
Johnson and the Executive Director is Kathy
Arnason. For further information please call
Kathy Arnason at: 204-642-9868.