Writing Your Family History

This class will discuss the process of writing a family history.  Mr. Svendsbye wrote his own family history two years ago and will describe how he researched his family history and what he found.  His story starts in 19^th century Norway when his parents and grandparents were born.  His father was born in Krøderen, Buskerud County, west of Oslo, and his mother at Levanger, just north of Trondheim, in Nord Trøndelag County.  They crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1904 and 1905, then went by train to northwestern North Dakota where his father and his mother’s family homesteaded in what became Big Meadow Township of Williams County. 

 

 

 

Lloyd Svendsbye was born to Norwegian immigrant parents and raised on the farm they homesteaded just south of Hamlet, ND, in northwestern North Dakota. He graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead MN and Luther Seminary in St. Paul. He has a doctorate in Church History from Union Theological Seminary in New York. Following his ordination he served parishes in Minneapolis and New York. He has worked for the Lutheran World Federation, taught at Concordia College Moorhead, was editor-in-chief at Augsburg Publishing House in Minneapolis, Vice President and Academic Dean at St. Olaf College and President of Luther Seminary and Augustana College in Sioux Falls. He is retired and lives with his wife, Annelotte, in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. He is active in Normandale Lutheran Church, Mindekirken Open House, the Norwegian American Historical Association, Torske Klubben and serves on the Norway House Board.