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Hans Gudbrandsen Volden and Anne Olsdaughter Skjelhaugen both lived on farms in and around the village of Vågå, which is in the county of Oppland in Southern Norway. Hans Gudbrandsen was born 20th Feb 1859 and lived on a farm near to the centre of Vågå called Volden. He lived there with his father Gudbrand Olsen Lien Volden (b.13 Sept 1822) his mother Ymbjor Hansdaughter Volden (b 19 June 1826) and his 3 brother’s Ola, Ivar and Ander’s and 3 sisters Mari, Anne and Ymbjor.
Anne Olsdaughter Hellelykkjun Skjelhaugen was born 20 May 1862 (died 22 March 1955) and lived on various farms in the Vaga including one just outside Vågå called Hellelyukan where she lived with her father Ola Olasson Hellelykkjun her mother Marit Knutsdaughter Hellelykkjun and where she had her son Hans Hansson (Bestefar) who was born on the farm 3rd Nov 1881. Anne, Hans and her parents left the Hellelykkjun farm for another farm in hamlet of Randsverk which is in the mountains just outside of Vågå called Skjelhaugen some time between 1882 and 1886, I know this as her second child Mari was born their on 19 July 1886. Anne's brother Knud Olsen (Vole) is quiet famous in the Vaage area as he pioneered the tourist trade by taking people to the top of Galdhøpiggen Norways heights mountain (2,469 metres) and where many of his descendants still live and involved with the tourist trade.
Hans Hansen Skjelhaug. Hans original name was Hans Hansen Hellelykkjun. This is because Hellelykkjun was the name of the farm where he was born and and the name his mother was using at the time of his birth. It is also recorded in Vaage town records that Hans used different names in his early life when he worked and lived on different farms in the Vaage area and it was not until he moved to Rjukan that he started to use Skjelhaugen as his surname again.
Now after nearly 20 years of analysing information we gathered from our trip to Vågå plus countless hours of surfing the Internet and e-mailing people, I think I have more or less sorted out what happened all those years ago. This culminated in Sept 2008 whilst searching for our great grandfather on the Internet, I came across a Han G Walden from Dovray Minnesota. This Hans I had found before in my searches as he was living in the area of Minnesota that our great grandfather had as his destination on his in immigration travel documents (Tracy Minn), however I had always discounted him because his name was different and as there were hundreds of other Hans Gudbrandsen’s to look into first and therefore discounted him. I did know that this Hans G Walden was Norwegian but that was about all I did know. What I did not know up until recently was that this Hans Walden had exactly the same birth date 20th Feb 1859 as our great grandfather, emigrated to Tracy Minnasota in 1881, the same time as our great grandfather and he came from the same village in Norway as our great grandfather.
On contacting one of his descendants a Kermit Erbes who still lives in the Tracy area Kermit explained that he and his family knew very little about his great grandfathers past, explaining that his mother had even visited and tried to trace his descendants in Norway. However during their visit they found that the church records in places they had been given by their grandfather (Hans Walden) had had fires and the documents they wanted had been destroyed. My answer to this is that Hans Gulbrandsen Volden may have changed a few details from his past so he could not be traced? Many Norwegians did this once in America for various reasons making it difficult for their pasts to be uncovered. Some changed their names to more American sounding equivalents i.e. many Gulbrandsen’s changed to Gilbertson. Some changed because of the spelling American immigration officials used on entry to the country, and it must also be remembered that in Norway before 1920 (when it became illegal to change your surname) Norwegians changed their name mo
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