Updated and revised March 26, 2024
Here we have the beginnings of a genealogical mapping of the family, relatives, and
ancestors of my children, Briianna Joy and Winter Aaron. There is also some branching
out to include some family history, people not directly related, but included as the
result of marriage.
(NOTE: Living relatives can only be viewed by members of the family to whom
I have granted access through this web site. Please ask for an invitation using the link
in the top right corner of the home page.)
(NOTE: The corollary of this is that living relatives to whom I have granted
permission can view all of the information entered about all the other relatives who
are members of our family. If there is any information displayed that you would prefer
to have hidden from other members of the family, please let me know by email so I can
consider your request.)
NOTE TO FAMILY MEMBERS: I keep my genealogy records on my personal
computer. Ever so often I upload updates to this web site. This erases what was here
previously (except for photos) and replaces it with the newest version. So if you see
anything that needs changing or correcting, do not make the changes here.
Instead, please notify me by email.
(brian@wyomason.net)
Before this current update, I spent some time updating information on living persons
and I spent a little bit of time on the Mason and Langhus sides of the family. I also have
continued entering our Norwegian relatives based on the information provided by Stein
Wisted on his website. I have a ton of people that I still have to include in our genealogy.
There have also been a few changes scattered in other areas of the genealogy.
Unfortunately, this web site does not include in the list of last names names beginning
with letters with diacritical marks such as Å, or Ø. To find those names you need to go to
the Name Index.
Norwegian names make genealogy simpler than in many countries. This is because
up until the 20th century, the second name of a child was the father’s name + “son”
or “daughter”. So, the son of Ola had the second name of “Olsen”. The daughter had
the second name of “Olsdatter”. The third name was the name of the farm where
they lived. However, this meant that if they moved, their third name changed to the
name of their new farm. If a person moved alot, their third name changed alot. Early
documents did not always include all three names. Also, over the years, before the
increase in literacy, the spelling of names would vary considerably. To simplify
matters, mostly in line with the convention used by Stein Wisted, I have used the
name a person had at birth, using today's spelling of the name of the farm where
they were born, even though they might not have used that name themselves. In
1923, it was ordered by law that each family should have a single, hereditary last name.
Also, I must say that there are several times when Stein Wisted indicates doubt or
conjecture about certain relationships. I just go ahead and enter the relationship as
if it were certain. This often happens when he encounters partial names. For example,
he may find two men named “Lars”, and come to believe that they are actually the same
person. I have no way of showing this uncertainty, and therefore set these relationships
down anyway trusting the conclusions that Stein comes to.
Finally, Stein Wisted does not include any information past 1900. Simply to put a
boundary on the time and effort put into his research, he drew a line there. This means,
of course, that information on all our relatives alive in 1900 or later needs to be filled in
by anyone willing or able to contribute.
The Norwegian genealogy also includes information provided by my third cousin,
Thor Evje. He did a lot of research on the Evje side of the family, especially since the
19th century, providing many details of the lives of the individuals. Unfortunately,
Thor passed away in 2017.
A lot of the work for this genealogy was done by my brother-in-law, Loyd Campbell, Jr.
and my cousin, Maureen Crook, with some assistance from my mother, Doris Zolnoski.
I received the information from Loyd over 50 years ago. Needless to say, the information
on the Campbell side of the family is incomplete. Maureen's information represents over
30 years of research. Sadly, both my mother and Maureen died in the latter part of 2014
I received a lot of information from my mother's second cousin, Baldwin Petersen
and from a genealogy chart done by my grandfather, Emmett Gillis, in 1916. A lot of
information added was provided to me by Kimball Everingham and pertains to one
of the Holliday branches of the family tree. Finally, relatives who found this site on
the web have passed additional information on to me. I want to especially thank Kevin
Holm.
If anyone has any information that can fill in some of the missing details, please email me at
brian@wyomason.net.
I will continue to try to fill in the details as they become known to me.
Also, if you understand Norwegian, any help you can give with the
notes that are written in Norwegian would be greatly appreciated. Google translation
just isn’t adequate at times to explain the correct meaning.