This is my 9th great grandfather. I have a date of around 1530. I don’t have a first name, or a marriage/children/parents. I’m not even sure this is a person. It is the earliest mention in my records of the name Brathole. This could be pronounced bra-thole, or brat-hole, or braut-holey. It’s a farm in Voss, Norway.
The trouble is that for hundreds of years you could the farm as your last name, or you could use your father or mother’s name by putting son or dotter at the end of it. Norway finally passed a law that you had to pick one or the other. Technically, I could be John Edson, John Emmasson, or John Richmond. This makes researching a very difficult matter.
I wanted to honor my 9th grandfather because it was eye-opening to find out that my grand mother’s last name was Brathole, but most of her brother’s last name was Haldorson, except every now and then it was also Brathole.
Apparently it wasn’t a family farm. They didn’t own it, they “leased it for several generations. All the land had already been purchased, that why so many left to own their own land in the US.
I thought maybe I could find out where the farm was, and maybe I could find an image on the net. I tried for weeks. Finally I got connected to a local Norwegian who spoke and wrote in English. I texted him if he knew about the Brathole farm, he said that he did. I asked if he knew of some website that might have a photograph of the farm. He said that he didn’t. Then he said, “if you wait a minute, I could send you one. I just have to lean out the window to take the shot.”
So thats how I have a picture of Brathole farm. I gave him the names of other farms and he sent them as well. I sent him my army shoulder patch. He collected them.
