About the Gjenvick-Gjønvik Archives
Since the original launch of the Archives in January 2000, the Archives has made a number of transformations and domains to find a home they can call their own. This site will evolve slowly - the and offer a more complete offerings. Our ability to continue adding to this site depends directly on the generosity of our users and benefactors without which this website can not exist.
Originally launched in 2000, the Gjenvick-Gjønvik Archives offers access to more than 2,000 documents, including passenger lists (like the one on the right), steamship brochures, immigration related documents and much more.
Finding items from the exact voyage your ancestors were on is quite unlikely, but not impossible. We recommend augmenting your family book with information and illustrations / photographs of related material. It makes your Family History Book that much more interesting to read.
Each item we place on this website will eventually be accompanied by its respective transcription. If you want to be kept up to date on new additions to this website, please join our mailing list or join us on Facebook.
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Other sites with extensive historical information charge a fee to access their databases (typically of goverment records) or charge a membership fee to access most of their material.
Are goal has always been to provide historical and educational material at no or low cost to the general public. The economy in the United States has been down the last few years. The effect on the archives has been no less than devistating.
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History of The Gjønvik-Gjenvick Archives
The following is an open letter from our Chief Archivist in the USA, Paul Gjenvick.
In 1991, I took over the etterkommere of the Gjenvick-Gjønvik family. My cousin, the late Arvid Gjønvik, started working on our family history in 1972. His book, published in 1976, was focused on just writing down the facts. Arvid was unable to locate information on my great-grandfather, Johan Lauritz Johnsen Gjønvik, but was able to proceed back in time through his wife, Anna Oline Gjønvik and her ancestors.
There were several items that I wanted to change -- let's face it, reading an entire book devoted to the facts of date born, name of spouse, date of marriage, children, and date died is not all that exciting. My primary goal in assuming this project was to make the genealogy of the Gjenvick-Gjønvik family merge with historical and social events. I wanted to go far beyond the basic facts with copies of family documents, photographs, and family group sheets. How to accomplish this as a part-time, intermittent project was the real question.
Armed with the basic facts, I began to research my grandfather first. We knew that he emigrated from Norway in 1913 and started out in Rock Island, Illinois. Nobody could agree how he got here. I discovered a number of old documents including a Contract for passage aboard a steamship of the Cunard Lines, an Immigration Inspection card, and a number of official looking documents, many of them in old Norwegian.
I had all of the "important looking" documents translated which offered a number of clues. Several weeks turned into months at the LDS Family History Center, gathering information on the ship he was on. In some of the records, my grandfather had stated that the ship was the "Lusitania" when in reality, it was two ships that brought him to the United States. The first steamship was a small vessel called the Aaro (or Åro) that was used by a "feeder line" called The Wilson Line of Hull, which specialized in transporting immigrants from small cities along the coasts of Scandinavia and brought them to Hull, England. This is similar to our modern day "hub and spoke" arrangement that many airlines use. From there, he traveled by train to Liverpool and boarded the Ocean Liner "Laconia". Relatives suspected that he arrived in New York or Philadelphia. As it turned out, he actually arrived in Boston.
Now it was time to gather information on the Cunard steamship Laconia including photographs (exterior shots were easy to find, but due to her short time in service, interior shots -- especially of the third class sections -- were not available. I located through microfilm at the LDS Family History Center, all of the information about the ship such as manifest for that voyage, documents about the cruise -- especially Saloon passengers. Over time, I uncovered a copy of the booklet given to emigrants before they left Norway and a photograph of the interior of the Cunard Steamship Office in Trondhjem where my grandfather purchased his ticket. Along the way, I came in contact with the g-grandson of Olaf Solem who sold the steamship ticket to my grandfather. I also reviewed and took copies of newspaper articles dealing with the departure from Trondhjem, the arrival in Hull, the departure from Liverpool, and the arrival in Boston. All of these records helped to build an more complete picture of what was going on in 1913.
Over a ten-year period, I had managed to collect some very fine, rare documents, pamphlets and brochures from Cunard, microfilm, photographs, books, and even a tape recording of my grandfather talking about emigration from Norway to South Africa around 1900. Now I could build an extensive timeline and add facts about my grandfather that relatives just weren't aware of before. Bringing the family history and associated documentation to the web was perfect for what I wanted to accomplish. You could still read basic facts, but now you also had the opportunity to view a substantial amount of additional information. If I wanted to view the steamship that he arrived on, just click on a hyperlink, and photographs, ship history, postcards, and other documents were all just one click away. And, as Paul Harvey says.. now you know the rest of the story.
Paul K. Gjenvick
26.10.2000
About the Curator, Paul Gjenvick
Paul was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the young age of seven, he was diagnosed with epilespy. He was considered one of the fortunate ones as they found a combination of medications that would provide good control of his seizures. He has had both petit mal (the blank stares) and grand mal seizures, the latter being quite severe in nature. The recovery time for Paul after a grand mal seziure has been in the 48-72 hour period.
