By Beth Finnson
Genealogy roadblocks: who among us has not encountered one (or more) when researching family history? What do you do when you just can’t find the clues you need to tie all the family relationships together?
Judy Dickson’s guest on Samtal Hour for February 27, 2023, was Natalie Kruse. She told us of her search for her Icelandic family; a family history that had been lost for three generations. All she knew was that her great-grandmother came from Iceland. However, after several years of dogged research from small clues and a never-give-up attitude, Natalie was finally able to find her great-grandmother.
Icelandic Roots was a valuable resource used to verify much of the information that she
discovered and to trace Hrefna’s birth family. Hrefna or Edna, as she came to be known, was placed in an orphanage as a child, and subsequently adopted, shortly after she arrived in the U.S. from Iceland.
This genealogical journey does have a happy outcome. Ultimately, Natalie and her family
traveled to Iceland and were able to reconnect with Edna’s family members and to visit an ancestral church.
Natalie’s advice to those with their own family mysteries was to never give up and to keep researching!
The Icelandic Roots database is a fabulous resource. Don’t forget to check out “Special Collections” with all the emigration information or the “Histories” tab and “Parish Records”. You never know what you will discover! Sometimes your greatest finds are not where you would expect.
Icelandic Roots members can come to the next Samtal Hour on March 13. Mallory Swanson will teach us about the Emigration Center in Hofsos.