Matt Hemmingsen 1876-1967: In The Beginning Again.

We can never get to the beginning, but for a solid Generation One, we will settle on Hemming Sivertsen and his wife, Guro Olsdatter. They were born about 1762 and 1771 respectively, of heritage long established around the Stjordal/Meraker area of Trondelag County, Norway.¹

Matt Hemmingsen was their descendant and our Granddad, born a century down the path in Hattfjelldal, Nordland.² Matt left unpublished memoirs from 1954. His cousin, Gina Plocker (parents: Hemmingsdatter-Rued), made audiotape in 1959 that is a recently recovered resource. These works of their elder years recall 1880s emigrations to Wisconsin. Then in 1999, Matt’s son, John Hemmingsen, compiled our Family History. We verify and augment their work through official archives, then give their stories.

The intention here is i) to broaden the base of characters using the new resource and ii) use the platform to recognize both non-emigrant and emigrant ancestors alike, while appreciating what drove their decisions.

To that end, please click for Our Hattfjelldal Family.PDF – it opens in a new window and enlarges the graphics shown below, so leave it standing. The red bullets within the charts show known emigrants, while the red superscript numbers were among those who remained. They are detailed in the PDF to reveal the legacy of Paul and Ole Hemmingsen in Hattfjelldal from about 1830-1920. It is the reference for future stories.

Back to Hemming and Guro; they made Norway’s 1801 census, where he was listed with a wife and two children. These elders passed on by 1820. They had four children survive to adulthood.

Hemming rented a small cottage on a small piece of land to farm for his own use. As was usual for the day, his children farmed too. These four children of Generation Two were married by 1836 and charged the wind with change. Sivert would soon pass, but the rest, and his widow, would journey away.

Utflyttar or Out-Migration 

Paul and Ole became our great-great-great grandfathers. Ole left Trondelag around 1840 to settle some 400 kilometers north in the Helgeland Region of Nordland. Paul followed around 1845. (Sister Mali likely traveled with Paul and settled in Vefsn). It was probably land that drew them.³ Paul and Ole rest in peace in Hattfjelldal, less than a degree of latitude below the Arctic Circle. Their statements of life in their new home were bold, such that they are still heard today. We would feel at home there.

Paul and Ole’s children matured in this countryside. Cousins among their children married, so we combined a number of family censuses from Hattfjelldal Parish in 1865 to frame that case and to set the scene for our people’s developing diaspora.

Paul and Ole’s households are displayed first. Family lore says Ole was an Army Officer. Typical of the time, Paul and Ole each had a child at home (married, or not) with offspring of their own, along with the yet unwed. Other children had established marital residences of their own at Branne, Forshaugen, Bratlid and Grorli, as shown in the lower portion of the chart below.  

Our family began to emigrate a couple of years after that census take, making it a baseline on which to imagine the dynamics and drama of the rollout.

That Cousin Marriage Established Generation Three

Paul’s son, Hemming (1826-1905) and Ole’s daughter, Gurine (1830-1915) married in 1851. They were farming at Grorli, or Groli, four years later, where Hemming was also a blacksmith. Their first child was our great-grandfather, Ole Mathias Hemmingsen. It is said – meaning we cannot find the proof – that he secured a Civil Engineering Degree.

Ole married Beret Has Mathisdtr in 1874 and are shown side-by-side in their respective parental homes in 1865; those of Hemming Paulsen and Matis Bentson. The many red bullets on this display suggest the torrent of tears to come, tempered with hugs of hope, as it becomes increasingly apparent to Generation Three that much of Generation Four must go. The only question was “who”. The superscripted persons hold much of the home story.

Girl Power     

The stage is almost set to create new posts, but many tales speak to the New World experience through male voice. The fact is, the first to make passage to America in our extended family was Sivert Hemmingsen’s widow, Mali, in 1866 to Minnesota (followed in 1868, by her freshly widowed sister-in-law, Mali Hemmingsdatter of Fiplingkrogen, Vefsn). An in between crossing came from our maternal side from Hatfjelddalen Farm; brothers of Great-grandmother Beret Has Mathisdatter.⁴ As to Beret’s husband, it was Ole Hemmingsen’s Aunt Elin Oline Olsen who paved the way. ⁵ His own sister, Pauline, beat him to Wisconsin. The plain truth was, those many decades back, while it was an in-county migration, Mali Hemmingsdatter left her older brothers behind in Stjordal, temporarily moving south to Strinda Parish, then home again, before going to Vefsn and ultimately, emigrating.⁶

Utflyttar Fra Oppland

Even before Mali’s earliest journey, Beret’s people trudged from Vågå to Vefsen, roughly 700 kilometers. Her side of the family again. That means Beret’s ancestry is needed, before sails can set for the west.

Oppland County is landlocked in the lower bulb of Norway, just south of Trondelag. Nordland is just north of Trondelag, in the slenderest part of the country, connecting its two bulbs.  Vågå and Sell Parishes are somewhat north in Oppland, while Vefsen and Hatfjelldal Parishes sit south in Nordland. Stjordal Parish, which holds Meraker, is in between, in Trondelag.

Perhaps, the Trondelagers waived the Opplanders through to Nordland. We shall never know.

The death of Marit Hansdatter at Susendahl in 1836 is the earliest available evidence of Beret’s maternal family in Hatfjelldal. She was 48.  Her husband was Jon Torgersen who remarried there, in 1839. The die was cast when Ole Hemmingsen b. 1800 Meraker, located first to Vollan, then to Nerli, in Susendahl around 1840.

The Nordlanders

Granddad was one-half Trondelager and one-quarter each, Opplander and Nordlander. His Nordlander group was from Hattfjelldal. He was the firstborn son, second child of Ole Mathias Hemmingsen and Beret Has Mathisdatter.

REFLECTION: Turn of The Century

Lifetimes had come and gone on our Nordland farms when Norway took its 1900 Census. Ugelvatnet now had seven residents; Grolien, ten; Nerlien, fourteen and Hatfjelldalen, seventeen.  Our footprint though, was much larger than that.

Sara Hemmingsdatter and Ivar Ivarsen were in-charge at Ugelvatnet. Andreas Olsen and Karen Larsdatter were the elders of Nerlien. They were preparing for many more years of tending to family footprints that had been laid long ago. 

Great-grandparents Mathis Bentson and Marit Jonsdatter had long passed at Hatfjelddalen Farm. Johan Mathisen was now ably retaining this lovely place in family hands, as it had been from as far back as Church Books told. It was the place from which Granddad’s dreadful emigration launched in 1887; his last memory of life in Norway.⁷

Granddad, born at Groli, was 23 in 1900. He was then of Mason WI and foreman of a lumber camp. His grandparents, Hemming Groli, aka Hemming Paulsen, and Gurine Olsdatter were at Grolien, just as they had been on that day in 1855 when the Church Book said their Elen was born. Hemming was still blacksmithing while each were now described as Føderåd, meaning they had written the farm over to another, usually a family member, in exchange for care. That person, Magnus Ingvald Nilsen, who appeared to take command of the farm about 1896, was the younger brother of Olaus Nilsen, widower and second husband of Ingaborg Anna Marie Hemmingsdatter. Groli prospers in 2023 under its current owner, who is the direct descendant of Magnus Nilsen.

In 1900, Hemming Paulsen had another five years on life’s ledger and his son, Ole, but three. Ole Mathias Hemmingson left us an amazing legacy; strong and proud. Yet, he dealt himself a hand of hardship when he left his homeland in 1882, as our stories tell. He repaired the way as best he could, with his resilient nature honed in Norway, but did he dream of the “what if”: what if the first-born of his Groli people had stayed home?   

We now close this re-tell, to await some new and some revamped stories. Many will stand as they were written. Remember to look at our PDF. Corrections and comments are welcome.

Notes and Sources

Updates are disclosed in the above PDF. This post was updated June 2, 2023, as well as its PDF. The PDF was update 19 Oct 2023.

Copyright © Marilee Wein and DoubleGenealogyTheAdoptionWitness 2018-2023, author and owner. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright author and owner.