Question about a Norwegian name

[Karen Kelsey]

A Swedish immigrant that I have studied, Augusta Hedstrom, married a Norwegian, and then settled in north-western Wisconsin, USA.  A family history says that Live Arnesdatter (Augusta's mother-in-law) was born in Lom Gunbransdalen, Norway on 15-May, 1816.  She, her husband and their 7 children left for Chicago in the spring of 1862 aboard the ship, the Sleipner. This vessel sailed directly from Norway to Chicago, via the St. Lawrence River - bypassing Niagara Falls by using the old Welland Canal and locks.  It was the first ship that sailed directly to Chicago, and it made history.  Unfortunately, the family experienced tragedy because the father, GOODMAN ARNE PEDERSON BRUDEM, died aboard ship of measles.  The captain of the Sleipner helped escort Live and her children to Grantsburg, WI, where she received help from the community of Norwegians. My question concerns the father's name.  Was Goodman a name, or did it denote an occupation?  (I can't find it listed in a Norwegian dictionary.) Was Brudem a surname, or might that be the name of his farm or an area in Lom Gudbransdalen.  Also, where is that town?  I can't find it on my map. Live Arnesdatter never became a citizen and she adopted the name Live Arneson here in the U.S. Her oldest son, Peder, enlisted in the infantry in 1864 (the U.S. Civil War), hoping to give his mother $300 so that she could gather her family together, rather than having them living with others.  Tragedy struck again when Peder died of Typhoid Fever the next spring.  Live petitioned the federal government for a pension, and I have those pension-petition documents. They corroborate the family history, except that the father's name (written in script) might say Arne Pederson Boudem - and there is no Goodman at the beginning.  Can anyone help me with this name?  Thanks!

[Stein Rypern]

Hi Karen --  
 
 1) I've never seen Goodman is either a name or a profession in Norwegian.
 
 2) For someone born in Norway during the first half of the 1800s, the odds are very much in favor of him or her *not* having a family name - just a patronymicon (-son or -daughter). So Brudem (or whatever the it was originally was likely a farm name).
 
 3) I can't find any farms in the municipality of Lom (which includes the parish of Lom, plus several other parishes) by the name of Brudem.
Here is a list of all farm names from Lom that starts with B:
 
 113 Brenna   Bøverdalen  Lom  
 122 Bøverkinnhalsen  Bøverdalen  Lom  
 122 Brustuen   Bøverdalen  Lom  
 126 Bakkeberg   Bøverdalen  Lom  
   1 Byre   Garmo   Lom  
  10 Brimi søndre  Garmo   Lom  
  15 Bruløkken   Garmo   Lom  
  33 Bryn   Lom   Lom  
  35 Blakar   Lom   Lom  
  52 Bergeim   Lom   Lom  
  53 Brekkøien   Lom   Lom  
  54 Borgen   Lom   Lom  
  59 Bø   Lom   Lom  
  81 Blekastad   Lom   Lom  
  86 Brenna   Lom   Lom  
  91 Barlund   Lom   Lom  
  103 Botn   Lom   Lom  
 
 The names are from Olaf Rygh's book Norske gaardsnavne (Norwegian farm names).
 
 4) The time period you are researching is a little awkward - there is a gap in censuses - one in 1801, next in 1865 - ie after they supposedly left for the US.
 
 I found a list which purports to be a transcription from church books of all recorded emigrants from Lom from 1854 until 1883, through the collection of resources at DIS Norge webpage:
 
http://www.dis-norge.no/genress/index.php
 
 I entered Lom in the Søk etter kommune search box and then selected Lom, Opland as the right municipality and chose emigation from the list of results.
 
 I copied the list into Excel and filtered it in various ways. Only one Live, daughter of Arne - born 1830, from farm Krøkje, emigrated in 1858.
 
 No son of Peder, Daughter of Arne, first name Live or first name Arne registered as emigrated in 1861 or 1862.
 
 5) Lom is a mountain valley, running west from the town of Otta, which is between the major cities of Lillehammer and Trondheim.  
 
 Hope that helped at least a little, even if you didn't get a positive match on the people you were looking for.
 
 Smile,
 Stein

[Marianne Solli]

Hi Karen.
 
I can tell you that Goodman is not a real Norwegian name. Most probably his name was spelled Gudmund, which is a Norwegian way of spelling it. I also think that the name Live was spelled only Liv in Norway. The surname Brudem  seems strange too, maybe it was Bruun? Or it could be the name of his farm or a place near-by.  
 
Lom in Gudbrandsdalen is a small place in Oppland county, very beautiful placed among high mountains,- the highest Galdh?piggen and Glittertind. The people living there (about 3000) hold cattle and there are lots of reindeers grazing among them. The climate is dry and very cold during the winter.
 
Greetings Marianne

[Marianne Solli]

Hi again Karen.
 
Afterwards I began thinking about the name Brudem. If it was written by hand at first, maybe it was written Bonde m? That means that he was a farmer and also was a male-person.  
 
Marianne.

[Svanhild nemorin]

Hi Karen,
Brudem is a farm name.In 1865 there were 12 farms/subfarms by that name located in Skjåk in Gudbrandsdalen.
Gudmund is the most common spelling of the name.In the 1865 census I found 622 Gudmund,but also a few Godmand,Godmon,Godmand,Gudmon,Gudman and Gudemand.
You'll find the censuses here: http://digitalarkivet.no
Good luck!
Svanhild

[Stein Rypern]

Hi Karen and Marianne --  
 
 I agree that Gudmund sure would make a lot more sense than Goodman, even though double first names like Gudmund Arne are rare, in my experience.
 
 But sadly - No Gudmund at all in the list of emigrants from Lom between 1854 and 1883.
 
 Also - Live seems to be a local name variety popular in Lom - there is quite a few Live on the list of emigrants, no Liv:  
 
http://www.snohetta.no/Lom/Lom_USA_1854-1883.html
 
 Does the family history you have say anything about where the info came from ?  
 
Have searched at ancestry.com in the US - and I find no Live Arnesen born 1816 in Norway (or Sweden, since Norway was under the Swedish king from 1814 until 1905)
 
 Smile,
 Stein

[Stein Rypern]

Hi again -- 
 
 Svanhild found the farm. In the 1865 Norwegian census there are 12 people on two Brudem farms:
 
 Brudem Nedre, farm no 235 in Sjåk and 
 Brudem Øvre, farm no 236 in Sjåk
 
http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/cgi-win/webcens.exe?slag=visbase&filnamn=f60513&gardpostnr=385&personpostnr=2640&merk=2640#ovre
 
 Checking on Sjåk I find that Sjåk was split off from Lom on 13 desember 1863 and turned into its own parish, so records prior to this date would be in Lom. So these farms would have been in Lom in 1862.
 
 Mmmm - according to disnorge.no for Sjåk and Lom, there is a person who has a copy of the church records for Lom from 1733 until 1930. 
 
 Maybe he can help you check for the people you are looking for ? (PER OLAV EIDSÆTER, email: per.olav.eidseter@nessetpost.no, phone: +47 90835588)
 
 Smile,
 Stein

[Karen Kelsey]

I never thought I would get such a thoroughly researched answer, and I thank everyone!  I have a copy of a letter that was written by the pastor of the parish from which they emigrated.  It was written in the 1870s - after Peder died in our Civil War (at that time called the war of rebellion).  I have to find my directions for uploading an image, and then I will scan and cut the letter down to a good size, then put it into this message - and everyone can guess at what it says.  The pastor does not use the name goodman, or godman, to describe Arne.  He only uses Arne Pederson Brudum .. or Broudem.  Thanks, and I'll post that image soon.  BTW- I also have two letters, written in Norwegian by Peder Arneson (also called Anderson here), telling his family about his hospitalization in Tennessee.  They talk about the money that was owed him, and how he hopes that his widowed mother has been able to collect that money for her and the children to live on.  Very touching, and the paper I am writing about Peder and Live (and the other siblings) will be entitled, Devotion to Family: A Norwegian Emigrant Goes Off to War.

[Karen Kelsey]

I will try again to attach the image of their marriage certificate.  I couldn't remember how to load a J-Peg on the first try or two!

[Stein Rypern]

You might be interested in learning that there is a book about the US civil war experiences of Norwegian emigrants.
 
 It is called til våpen for det nye land (translated: To Arms for the New Country), by Karl Jakob Skarstein. Published in 2001 by J.W Cappelen publishers in Oslo, in cooperation with the Norwegian Defense Museum. ISBN 82-02-19097-5.
 
 Few people, either in the US or in Norway realizes that many Norwegian immigrants fought in the US Civil War.
 
 The first Norwegian immigrants arrived in the USA in 1825, and very few had immigrated before 1836, when immigration started to become a yearly phenomenon.
 
 By 1861, about 60 000 immigrants had arrived from Norway to the USA.
 
 During the civil war, 6000 Norwegian immigrants became soldiers. Most of them on the Union side, but from the small group of Norwegian immigrants to Texas (about 300 persons) close to 100 became soldiers in various confederate units too.
 
 Almost 1000 of these 6000 soldiers died during the war from wounds or diseases - ie one in six of the volunteers, and one in sixty of the Norwegian immigrant population in the US in 1861.
 
 There were many families who came to the promised land, but paid a heavy price for their new country.
 
 Hope you find more about your relatives. Good luck in your research.
 
 Grin,
 Stein

[Karen Kelsey]

I just found out that between 1851 and 1853 this family moved from Lom Gudbransdalen to Bardu, which is way up north.  Their last three children were born in Bardu, so that is why they were not found in the moving-out records from the Lom area.  Thanks for all of the information that everyone has contributed!

[Stein Rypern]

Sounds like you found a family that had an interesting background.  
 
 There still is a small area in Troms fylke )(province) in Northern Norway - the Bardu/ Målselv area, where the dialect people speak is influenced by groups of southerners moving up there to settle the largely unhabited area when the population growth in the south made things more crowded there. Kind of like a Go North, young man thing. Many then continued onwards to America, where conditions were better than in Northern Norway.
 
 These days, the Bardu area is best known to the young men of Norway as one of the places where you serve your national service in the Army. I spent some time up there in the mid-80s and have been back for refresher exercises a couple of times. Beautiful place, but just as cold as North Dakota in the winter - and far darker in wintertime :-)
 
 Grin,
 Stein

[Gloria Hanson]

I have found this series of messages very interesting.  Arne Pedersen and Live Arnesdatter were my great great grandparents.  Their daughter, Anna, married my great grandfather Bersven Pederson.  According to family legend, they met on the boat coming to the U.S.
 
Arne and Live appear to have lived on the Dagsgaard and Brudem farms in the Lom area before moving to Nordland in 1851.  In the Bardu area their childrne's birth records show them on the Rolstad and Bjørnsmoen farms.
 
I'd love to hear if you find any additional information about them
 
Thanks for all the information in these messages.
 
Gloria

[Karen Kelsey]

I studied this family because one of the emigrant's children married an ancestor of my Swedish friend.  When I drove to the cemetery in Wisconsin, I realized that there was a story to be discovered.  I wrote a short paper about the family and gave it to the small historical society in Grantsburg, Wisconsin (the town where they had lived and are buried), and sent a copy of the oldest son's military records to the Wisconsin state archives.  I also sent a copy of the paper that I wrote to the archives, but I doubt that they would have kept something that was submitted by an independent, non-professional researcher.  If you want a copy of this study, please send a note to my new e-mail account: wmkelsey@sbcglobal.net
   I will be happy to print it and send it via snail mail.  It has too many embedded photos to allow the document get through my anti-virus program if I were to send it via electronic mail.

[Marianne Solli]

Hi Karen.
 
It is an interesting story and sad too, because of Goodman Arne Pederson Brudem died. I began to wonder about Goodman; maybe it just can be translated with husband, - the English word. He was the husband of the family too.  

[Thomas Vikander]

Gudmund is an old Norse and Norwegian name. This may be a clue to the basis for the name Goodman.