My extended family have grown into lineage geeks recently. Every so often, I acquire an email forward in regards to where our ancestors came from and who they were. I noted this hobby if theirs once in a post called Uncle Henry.
This afternoon my mom was at it again. She encountered something pretty cool. The following is a copy of the page where my Great Grandmother, Kristiane Ostbye, signed herself into the country at Ellis Island. If you care to, click on the picture. The writing is then decipherable. (It’s on line 13)
The Pilver 
Wow, it’s so wild that you just posted this, cause just the other day I was doing the same thing. I was at a friend’s house and his mother is big into this stuff (she’s some big-wig in the Daughters of the Confederacy), and I mentioned that no one seems to know anything at all about my mother’s side of the family. It’s like my great-grandparents just dropped out of the sky and there’s nothing before them. Well, within a few hours we traced back to both their parents and now I have death certificates of some of them and found out about a zillion great-aunts and uncles I didn’t know about. Turns out one of my great-great grandfathers died in a lunatic asylum.
Explains a lot, really.
Hey, you’re a Swede!
I am a swede, but this relative same from Norway. Apparently that’s important…to my mom 😉
Hey! Tell your friends she was Norwegian! She’d roll over in her grave if someone called her a Swede! It’s fun to see this. I’m not sure she actually signed it. Bob is in NY and might go to Ellis Island. Said he would take a picture if he does.
You’re mom is too funny! This is very cool, esp since you are named after her (I’m assuming). I spent a month or so dinking on ancestry.com awhile back. It was great…all I had to do was click around and take advantage of the work done by other people. Never saw anything this interesting though.
I did hit a dead end on my mom’s moms side, but I don’t think she was a daughter of the confederacy.
I may have to do this in the future.
My dad’s parents divorced when he was young- and it was unfashionable to do so- therefore he kind of resents his family history, and avoids talking about it.
Did you notice that she came in on the S.S. Lusitania? That is an historic ship. There are even documentaries about it. It sank. Thank goodness for you and me it was after Grandma Kitty arrived to Ellis Island.
Here is a link to a photo of the Lusitania:
The Germans were responsible for sinking the ship when they was assumed there were weapons aboard the passenger liner. This became part of the string of events leading to the US involvement in WWII.