Norway - the land of our forefathers

Three hour bus ride to Oslo leaving at 9.10am where we plan to delve into our family history. Pretty much rained the whole trip but eased off for our arrival in Oslo. A change from the endlessly flat cropping land of yesterday to forested hills and rock formations that show the often perfectly vertical striations of their 400 million year history = another fascinating scenic trip. The roadside wild flowers no longer red poppies but purple lupins, white daises and something yellow. As yesterday and reported on by Tim, Volvo’s are the most common cars on the road followed by Audi then Beema.

Anders Christian Thoresen our great, great grandfather, was born 19 July 1829, and once married lived at 274 Bentzegaden, Gamle Akers, Christiana (now Oslo), which is long gone and there is some confusion as to where the location of the house was but we know it was close to the church. We visited the two possible options after being directed to them by a lady at the church, one now a modern development of high rise apartment buildings with an empty plot where we feel the original house was at 274 Bentzegaden now called Bentsegata - photo of this a couple of pages on with the black gates.

Anders married Olia (Lena) Olsdatter in the Old Aker Church, Oslo 4 September 1859, they immigrated to NZ on the Hovding, arriving in Napier 1 July 1872. A really unusual church where we lucked up again, coinciding our visit with it’s weekly opening hours. Strikingly austere making the fittings really stand out, the church site dates

back to early 1100’s with little of the original is in the current structure. We spent ages checking out the headstones, finding three Thoresen ones, now have to research if rellies - one named Finn !

Although the old family home no longer exists, I have added some shots of the few remaining wooden houses from the area the house was thought to be in, that date back to the right era. The first from the same street the church is in - Akersbakken, and the rest from Bengsegata which we were told is the modern translation from Bentzegaden.