Welcome

My name is Donald James Sogge, born on a farm near Jackson, Minnesota January 9, 1935. I began a website in 1996 to record information about my Norwegian ancestors who emigrated to America in the Nineteenth Century, I started with a list of fifty four family members. My goal was to find their birth information in Norway and dates of emigration to America. I also wanted to locate their resting places here, take pictures of their gravestones and record all the data for future generations.

The website laid idle for some time and in 2020 my grandson William Sogge, born in Maryland, updated the site. The site continues our ancestors from Norway but has grown to include stories of following generations in America in the Twentieth Century.

I encourage family members to continue this site through the years by adding information on future generations. But always, Remember our Norwegian Heritage.

Introduction

"When one is way into the mountains one is most strongly gripped by the feeling of the eternal and original. It is the contrast between the changeable and transitory of human life and what speaks to us from the rivers and the bare mountains about things that late or never disappear. One may now and then get the same feeling when sitting on a bench at the long table in a farm house, where the family has been seated, generation after generation, and the clock on the wall has measured the years and days for the families living there down through the centuries.

"The farm is the cradle of the family. Not only for those who are attached to the farm and who live there today. Cotters and farmers with all their families and descendants have their origin there and those who live in town, either working in the factory, in the office or are public officials must still return to the valley and the farm to find their ancestory."

(From "Farm and Family History for Surnadal, Norway" by Hans Hyldbakk, 1991,
translated from Norwegian to English)


Our Norwegian ancestors who immigrated to the United States in the last half of the 19th century came from farm families. Although Norway was not especially fit for agriculture, almost all Norwegians of the time were farmers and almost all the farms were small. Until the 17th and 18th centuries, few farmers were self-owners; farms were mostly owned by the King, the church, or private land owners. There was little practical difference from being a self-owner, however, as the farmer's son had the right to succeed his father. In fact there, were some tax advantages in not being a self-owner. The farmers of Norway, even of the smallest farms, were completely free men. Norway did not have the slavery-like conditions of many countries of Europe.

Why, then, did our Norwegian ancestors come to the United States? One reason is that, other than the oldest son, no farm boy or girl could succeed their father on the family farm. Even if there were farms available to buy, most people were unable to raise the money. Some others left Norway for religious reasons. Many came because they had heard of the wonders of this new land. Enough land to start a farm could be bought by working and saving money for a few short years. Trees were ready to be felled for houses, streams had pure water to drink and were overflowing with fish to eat. There were no authority figures to give them rules to obey. If a man was honest and hardworking, he could make a good living for himself and his family in America.