Helga Margrét Reinhardsdóttir

Helga Margrét is a former employee of The National Archives of Iceland (Þjóðskjalasafn Íslands). She has now retired. One of her many tasks is answering inquiries from all over the world about Icelandic ancestry, as all Icelandic church registers are part of the archives. Helga has been interested in genealogy and stories about her ancestors for as long as she can recall. Her maternal grandparents were first cousins and they loved telling stories from times now long past. Most of Helga Margrét’s ancestors came from Snæfellsnessýsla, Dalasýsla and Barðastrandarsýsla. These are her main areas of specialty, although she has acquired an overall knowledge of other parts of Iceland.

Helga was born in Siglufjörður in northern Iceland and later lived on the outskirts of Reykjavík in Kópavogur as well as in Ólafsvík, a small village on the Snæfellsnes peninsula. She also lived and worked in Copenhagen and in Gothenburg, Sweden, but returned home to Iceland for good in 1983. Back in Iceland, she finished her BA in History and Swedish at the University of Iceland and spent 25 years working at RÚV, Iceland’s national television and radio broadcaster, as Nordic and European coordinator for co-productions and as production manager for internal TV productions.

Regarding her involvement with Icelandic Roots, Helga Margrét says: “Vesturfarar (Icelanders who emigrated to North America) are close to my heart as my great-great-grandfather Jónas Eyvindsson Doll emigrated, as did six of his eight children. Three of his siblings emigrated early on as well, Sigríður (Freeman), Guðmundur (Goodman) and Gísli (Evans) with their families. My husband and I went to Canada and the States on a 14-day excursion with Jónas Þór in 2003. We visited many of the early Icelandic settlements in Manitoba, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The highlight of the tour was meeting many relatives, as well as our visit to Hecla Island, Lake Winnipeg, where my great-great-grandfather and many of his descendants lived and are buried.”