Connect Roald Amundsen?

Question

December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen became the first explorer to reach the South Pole.  I happened to notice he is not connected to the Tree yet. :)

Anyone want to take a shot?

Answer 1

ok, I'm exploding the tree with sources and siblings. I'm still weak on actual profiles.

Comments

This is much harder than I thought with all the "son"s and "dotter"s. Feel free to jump in anytime people. I'm having issues with what we view as the last name seeming to change for no reason and tracking dates is VERY important with several people having the same name even back then.

---

This being Norway in the early 1800's, I didn't think they had last names yet, but Sahlqvist and Wright do look like they are being used as last names.  Seems too early for that, but then, the aristocracy and tradespeople were the first to use fixed last names.  I'd be interested in hearing what Sahlqvist means.  Wright may be a craftsman, like a wheel wright or similar, but it would be better for someone who speaks Norwegian to say for sure.  But since they appear to have lived in the village or city, they may have been tradespeople with some of the first last name usage.  Kirsten should probably still be just Kirsten Wright, not Sahlqvist.  For most people of the time, names changed every generation  Wives didn't take a husband's name, although she might be associated with a new farm (or village?) name.

---

I'm not sure we have many (any?) Norsk speakers on WikiTree yet. I asked for help connecting Norwegians a few months ago, and got no responses.

---

While the "common people" used the patronymical last names all the way to the 1900s, at least parts of the aristocracy or upper class were using last names since the middle ages. See for instance Stoltenberg or Arctander.

Wright does not mean anything in Norwegian. Either the family has adjusted the writing at some point, to make the name sound more noble (which is known to have happened in other families), or it could be that their ancestor immigrated from the British Isles at some point.

Sahl can mean saddle, and qvist or kvist can mean branch or stick. Does not make too much sense when combined. The use of q instead of k makes it sound more Swedish than Norwegian, but again it could be a case of "noblification" of the name.

Regarding getting Roald Amundsen connected it might be easiest to make this happen through siblings and spouses of the closest generations. From ca 1750-1800 the sources are plentiful and easily available, however before that it's a lot more difficult to find good primary sources. At least that's how I got Thorbjørn Egner connected (after quite some time and dead ends). I added some sources to Jens Amundsen yesterday, will continue with the others when I have time.

---

Found a link! (At least according to Geni and Marthinsen genalogy pages)

• Roald's brother Leon Henry Benham Amundsen is Amundsen-250
• His daughter was Hanna Henrikke Gustava Amundsen, b 1905 in Kristiania
• Her huband was Egil Behrens, b 1913 in Stavanger
• His father was Andreas Thomsen Behrens, b 1880 in Bergen
• His father was Johan David Behrens, b 1854 in Bergen
• His father was Andreas Thomsen Behrens, b 1821 in Bergen
• His father was Johan David Behrens, b 1797 in Bergen, which is Behrens-515

Now just need to find some proper sources for this 

---

Connected!

---

Awesome. Well, I tried.