My Qplaces

Qplaces - homes of my paternal ancestors

QPlaces show homes (farms) of my paternal ancestors line back to the early 17th century.

Places and generations

My paternal ancestors seem not to have stayed at the same location for more than 1 generations. There are only two exceptions. Why so mobile? The reason is that very few men of my paternal ancestor line were the oldest (male) sibling. According to Norwegian inheritance law, impartiable heritance was the rule, older males before younger, and male before female. So my fathers always had to move away from their parental home and find a new place for their family.


1 & 2: Kjølås: Lars og Martin Solli
3: Myklebust: Ole Karl Ljøen
4: Ljøen: Martinus Helset.
5&6: Helset, Erik Ingebrigtsen Helset og Ingebrigt Knutsen Gomsdalen
7: Gomsdalen, Knut Jonsen Furnes
8: Furnes: Jon Knutsen Årset
9&10: Knut Knutsen, Knut Torsteinson Årset
11 - ?: Eide / Indre Eide i Eidsdalen. Berdal in Valldal?


Stranda: Map of the area

My QPlaces are located in Stranda, Sunnylven and Geiranger. Today these places are in Stranda municipality, and historically these farms have been in various administrative districts. Most of the farms are located along the Storfjorden, Sunnylvsfjorden and Geirangerfjorden

Generation 1 and 2 (1920 - ): Kjølås

Kjølås is a farm by Storfjorden in Western Norway. My paternal grandfather and my grandmother bought&inherited a small farmstead at her family farmland. They married and settled at Kjølås in 1920. My father and I was born here. The view is from the location of the old farm settlement at Kjølås and the roof house our small farmstead is seen just below the hill.
Solli farm at Kjølås view towards Bygda. Photo: Arne Solli


Generation 3 (1890-1920): Myklebust


My Great-grandfather Ole Karl Ljøen and his wife settled at her parents farm. They got a small cottage called "Vangen" or "Lempen" not far from her parents farm.  The picture of  "Vangen" is taken at Christmas time in 2015, a winter with less snow than normal.


Vangen is the white house in the middle across the Embla river at Myklebust. Photo: Arne Solli

Generation 4 (1840s-1890): Kleivane at Ljøen.

Martinus Erikson Helset, my great-great-grandfather and my great-great-grandmother must obviously have had a very intimate relation of 3rd degree without being married. When she got pregnant, Martinus had a huge problem, because he had a older brother who was going to inherit the farm from their parents. He would not be able to support a family. Luckily the parents of his wife-to-be had a tiny plot of "land" where they cut put up a cottage. The place is called Kleivane and looks very pretty today. It was small, it was dangerous and a big avalanche sent the farm houses into the fiord in 1902, then agin in 1907. Because they expected the avalanche to come, they stayed in the basement of the house those nights and survived.  
Kleivane cottage at Ljøen in Sunnylvsfjorden. Photo: Arne Solli


Generation 5 and 6 (1780-1840): Helset

Ingebrigt Knutsson Gomsdal lost both his parents when he was 6 years old. He was raised by his uncle at the Helset farm. His uncle married twice but had no surviving children. The next in line to inherit the farm was his nephew Ingebrigt.  I have no good pictures of the Helset-farm, so I found one on the web. The Helset farm is down there by the lake.

Photo: www.sunnmoringen.no

Generation 7 (1746-1756): Gomsdal

To the left of the picture shows the ruins of the two family holdings at Gomsdalen farm by the Geiranger fjord at 625 masl. Geiranger can be seen down below at the fjord with a cruise ship.
Gomsdalen seen from Bringastølen. Photo: Arne Solli

Gomsdalen was the livelihood for Knut Jonssen and his wife. They died in the mid 1750s and their three small children, Ingebrigt, Amund and Gullaug, was taken care of by relatives and neighbours. Ingebrigt moved to his uncle at Helset, Amund first at Gjørvad  then later he moved to Lillebø and Gullaug moved to Bringa, a small farm by the fiord.

Generation 8: Furnes

Furnes is located in Sunnylvsfjorden and there are very few pictures of the farm because it is not really visible from the fjord. However from the opposite side of the fjord at 500 masl Furneset can easily be seen.
Furneset seen from Timbjørgheiane the opposite side of the Sunnylvsfjord. Photo: Arne Solli


Generation 9-10: Årset

Årset is in Geiranger located in the middle of the serpentine road "Ørnesvingane" - "Eagle turns".
Årset is part of four farmsteads called "Møllsbygda" and Årset leftmost house in the upper part of the "Møllsbygda" settlement.
Møllsbygda consist of four farms, Grande by the fjord, then Møll, Årset top left and Møllssæter top right. Photo: Arne Solli


Generation 11 - : Where?

Årset farm, generation 9-10, was probably occupied by my ancestors at about year 1600. So where did their paternal ancestors live? Perhaps at Indreeide which is very close to Årset. Årset (Generation 9-10) can be reached by following the valley further south into Geirangerfjord. Another possibility is that the first Knut at Årset was born at Berdal in Valldal.

Indreeide ("Inner Eide") is the southern and separate part of the Eide farm. The picture is taken from Eide. Photo: Arne Solli, 2017

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