How is it best to treat farm names in the recording of Norwegian
ancestors in genealogy software such as Family Tree Maker (FTM)?
Many of my Norwegian ancestors living in the 19th century and earlier
had farm names appended to their patronymic names. Example: Ole Olsen
Polden simply meant Ole's son while he lived on the Polden farm. He
later moved to the Sommero farm, at which point he became Ole Olsen
Sommero. Finally, he bought and settled on the Aalbu farm, becoming
Ole Olsen Aalbu. It was the Aalbu farm name that eventually became a
surname in the modern sense, and that occurred when the first of his
descendents emigrated to the USA.
In recording Ole Olsen's name in FTM, I had first recorded it as Ole
Olsen Polden, since it was on Polden that he was born and first
resided. This can be confusing to a reader, who may wonder how a
Polden could beget an Aalbu. An alternative would be to record him as
simply Ole Olsen, showing "Polden" as part of the place name for his
birth event.
I'm looking for some reasonable and consistent methodology that would
both take into account the importance of farm names in Norwegian
genealogy and also result in clarity with regard to the relationship
between forebears and descendents.
A related question: how do you suppose men were addressed socially by
those who did not know them well? Mr. (herr'n?) [farm name]? This
would seem akin to addressing Leonardo as Mr. da Vinci! |