#94: Long Lasting

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (2026-34): Long Lasting
The weekly prompt is provided by www.amyjohnsoncrow.com.

When I started planning out this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks posts and came to this prompt, I really couldn't come up with anything. But that was back in January. Then in June, I received an image—the only known image—of my great-grandfather, Ludvig Olsen.

Ludvig Olsen.  C.1905-10. ©️2026 Edward Olsen

Ludvig was the sixth of seven children born to Laurits Olsen and Amalie Lovise Jensdatter on May 13, 1887, in Tvedestrand, Norway. In the early 1900s, the six youngest children all immigrated to the United States. The oldest child, Johanna Marie, married in 1896 and stayed behind in Norway to raise her family.

In June of this year, my parents traveled to Norway with my father's brother to sight-see and to try to see some of the ancestral sites where my father's Norwegian grandparents were from. One of the primary locations they wanted to visit was Eidbostranda in Tvedestrand, where Laurits and Amalie started their family. On a whim, I suggested to my mother that she post an inquiry in a Facebook Norwegian Genealogy group to see if someone could help locate Eidbostranda and the local parish church. As luck would have it, she received a response to her post from none other than a direct descendant of Johanna Marie—the very branch of the family that had stayed in Norway! They ended up planning a meetup for the day my parents were scheduled to be in the area.

It turned out to be a wonderful reunion of two family branches that had diverged over a century ago. This cousin showed them Eidbostranda and the Dypvåg Church in Tvedestrand, and they even enjoyed a broader visit with extended family.

At this reunion, our cousin brought out a document he had prepared for their arrival, complete with detailed information about Laurits, Amalie, and Johanna Marie's descendants. Then came the photos. Apparently, Johanna Marie's emigrating siblings had mailed cabinet card portraits back home to Norway from New York—and among those long-kept treasures was a picture of my great-grandfather, Ludvig!

I won't go into extensive detail about Ludvig here, as I have written about his story before. Briefly: Ludvig emigrated on April 7, 1906, bound for New York. He met and married my great-grandmother, Gulborg, on September 9, 1911, in Brooklyn. They raised their growing family in Brooklyn until tragedy struck. On January 17, 1930, Ludvig was gravely injured in a workplace accident on a shipping pier and passed away twelve days later on January 29.

Because his life was cut so short at age 42, and because informal snapshots were uncommon in the early 1900s, our side of the family had no photographs of Ludvig. What an incredible blessing to see his face for the very first time! I am amazed that Johanna Marie's descendants preserved these photos of their American relatives—relatives they had lost touch with over the generations.

When I looked ahead at the blog calendar after their trip and saw the prompt "Long Lasting," I knew immediately what I needed to write about. This single photograph is proof of a long-lasting thread of family memory preserved across oceans and generations for more than 100 years.

Genealogy Snapshot

Name: Ludvig Amandus Olsen
Parents: Laurits Olsen & Amalie Lovise Jensdatter
Spouse: Gulborg Gulbrandsen
Relationship to me: Great Grandfather

1. Ludvig Amandus Olsen & Gulborg Gulbrandsen
2. Clifford Olsen & Emma Dorothy Hillenbrand
3. My Father & Mother
4. Me