Berwick Biography

As I'm doing more research on the Eikeness family in ND & MN, I found the ND Biography Index at the NDSU libraries. Lo and behold Swen Eikeness showed up in, "Berwick: A Handful of Civilization Dropped In A Desert" by Milo F. Bryn. I ordered it and received the page as PDF attachment this morning. Although it doesn't give me any new information & basically says what his obituary does, it's still nice to have.

Sven G. Eikeness

Sven G. Eikeness was born on April 13, 1865, in Frederickshall, Norway. He came to the United States as a young man and worked for a number of years as a farmer north of Berwick and as blacksmith in Berwick.

In 1894 he was married to Hilda Olava Thorson Lento [sic] of Fairbault [sic], Minnesota. Their twelve children include Thor of Barton, Otto, Mrs. Ed Solem of Rugby, Mrs. Ed Larson of Tunbridge, Mrs. Ragna Carlson of Tunbridge, Mrs. Marshall Granger of East Grand Forks, Minnesota, Mrs. Theodore Rivas of St. Paul, Minnesota, Mrs. P. J. Riordan of Omaha, Nebraska, Mrs. Claude Cross of Avadore, Oregon, Helmer, Olga (deceased), and Mrs. Annie LaFavar [sic] (deceased). Mrs. Eikeness died in 1948.

He served as a village trustee for Berwick from 1834 to 1935. He was a member of the Berwick Lutheran Free Church.

Mr. Eikeness died on August 4, 1949, in Rugby and was buried in the Berwick Lutheran Cemetery.

Another Ancestor Came to America

Lately I've been trying to use Find A Grave to help fill in some blanks. I had great luck the other night finding Griswold & Hilliard family members. I decided it was time to try finding more Eikenesses. I've looked & looked with no luck. But as I was searching & re-looking over what I had, I realized I was missing quite a few people in census records. For some reason I started searching for Swen Eikeness' brother Johan Ludvig Hansen. And that's when I found something exciting. It turns out their mother Ragnild, who I thought died in Norway, actually came here.

A few years ago I was searching for Swen & Hilda in the MN censuses and found that his father Hans Andersen was living with them in Walcott, Rice county, MN in 1900. I noted at the time that it said Hans was married but I figured it must be a mistake or she was still in Norway. I had Ludvig Hansen in 1920 living in Twp. 157, Pierce, ND. He is listed as Ludvik Hanson, 61, widow, b. Norway. With him is John Hanson, 26, his son; Helin Ekenes [Helen Eikeness], 25, divorced, servant (his niece), b. MN; Ramon Ekenes [Raymond Larson], 6/12, her son, b. ND; and Helga Ekenes [Eikeness], 5, sister to Helen, b. ND.

Working back, I found him in 1910, in the same place. Listed as Ludvig Hanson, 50, widow, b. Norway. With him then is his son John Hanson, 18, b. ND; Ragna ??, 21, niece, single, working as his housekeeper. This has to be Ragna Eikeness, the age is right & she was his niece. However, it says that she was b. Norway & immigrated in 1904.

It turns out he was living there by 1900. I never would have found him in 1900 had it not been for his son. He is listed as Jacob Hanson, b. Dec 1858 Norway, widow. I would've had my doubts had it not been for the other people with him. Hans Hanson, b. Nov 1890 ND, his son; John Hanson, b. Mar 1893 ND, his son; and ta-da . . . Ragnild Iversen, b. Jun 1833, Norway, married, immigrated 1880, his mother! Not only that but the year is right on, the year she was married, 1855, the number of children: 12 with 10 still living. It is all perfectly right.

My guess is that Ludvig's wife died leaving him with two young boys so his mother went to stay with him or live with him in ND, leaving her husband, son Swen & his family behind in Walcott, Rice, MN. Supposedly my great-grandmother Ann was born in Berwick in 1904, the first in the family born in ND. So the family moved from MN to ND between 1900 & 1904.

Working back again in MN, I found through another hard-fought search, Hans & Ragnild Anderson together in Walcott in 1885. Also with them were the two youngest children Ole b. 1878 & Christian [Kristiane] b. 1880.

Now the question remains, what happened to Hans & Ragnild? Did she go back to MN or did he move to ND with the rest of the family? Where did they each die and when? This has been a difficult family to search. They went by so many names: Ekenes, Egnes, Eikeness, or the patronyms Hansen, Andersen & Iversen. Moving to ND doesn't help me any either as the records for ND are no where near as good as MN back then. This is my new quest now that I know Ragnild came here also and before her son Swen!

A very useful site

I feel lucky to have ancestors that settled here in Minnesota. Both because I live here which makes it so much easier to do research and because there are so many good resources online. One I actually ran across in an issue of Family Tree Maker magazine is called MACO eCounties. This site has been so useful in finding marriages that took place before or after the database that Ancestry.com covers for MN. I've had two big finds so far using this. One on my side and one on my husbands.

There were stories in the family that my great-grandfather William LeFavor re-married after my great-grandmother Ann died in 1933. Doing a search did indeed turn up another marriage! I sent away & very promptly received a copy of the marriage. William married Maud Ann Moore (b. 9 Dec 1914 MN) on 21 Oct 1934 in East Grand Forks, Polk, MN. They were married by Rev. Daniel James Kerr, witnesses: Mrs. D. J. Kerr & Dr. L. E. Doringan. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find anything more on Maud. I'm hoping when the 1940 census comes out next year, I'll be able to do some more tracking on them.

On my husband's side, he had heard that his father's father's surname was Anderson. This has been a hard thing to really verify as his grandmother died some years ago, and his father isn't listed in Ancestry's birth index as his parents were not married. Wouldn't you know that doing a search for Portlance turned up a record for his grandma & a Michael Anderson? I sent for this record but was sent an email back saying no marriage record existed but perhaps a marriage license which the recorder could send me. So as it turns out Arlene Elizabeth (Kerr) Portlance, aged 26 and Michael Frank Anderson, aged 21, filed for a marriage license on 29 Sep 1960 in Hennepin County. The month after my husband's father was born. But according to the county recorder, they either never married or did it in another state. I'm guessing they never married. But I never would have gotten this clue without the website.