A Farm in the Woods

AFamily Name… Omholt as a family name only dates back to the mid 19th century at a scattered series of family farms known in Norway as Omholt in Buskenrud fylke(County), Omholt Store(The English Word Store comes from the Vikings…it means the same thing now, but back then it simply meant BIG), and Lille(Little) Omholt in present day Aust-Agder fylke(County) . From these 3 kommunes come the descendants of every person in the world named Omholt. The use of a fixed family surname only became in vogue in Scandinavia being around 1800 and only became law in Norway in 1909.

Before that the sagas and tellings of the descendants of the Norse and Danes had only the name of that persons father as their last name. So Ole Rolfson was the son of Rolf Haroldson and Marie Hendricksdatter was the daughter of Hendrick Torkleson… ad infinum. Tracing ones Scandinavian roots is a laborious process, especially for those who do not read Norwegian or can decipher the old Gothic Danish if you can get back far enough in time.

I have had to rely heavily on others memories, stories, and years of hard work. For that I must thank our cousins Charles Holmes of San Diego, California, Rosellen Frisbee of Lincoln, Montana, and my Aunts Julie Jedlicka and Karen Saunders of Alaska. Also the countless unnamed genealogical volunteers, county clerks, and archivists that have either done favors, spent hours digitizing old paper records, or finding and sending reams of documents to my patch of America in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.