On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 15:48:55 -0500, Duane Bozarth wrote:
Dave Hinz wrote:

It helps when the farm has been in the same family since 1358...and the
land sale record is even online:
http://www.dokpro.uio.no/perl/middel...l?b=2592&s=240

"3 men of the King's Authority, at (the event of) Harald of Lunde and
his wife Ingegorg selling to Gudbrand Thordsson, 3 units of land called
Tokestad at Forberg (in the parish of Ringsaker). (document location
and number), dated 29 June 1358.

Now that is too cool! Makes our third-, fourth-, and (rarely)
fifth-generations look pretty puny doesn't it?

What's even more cool about it, is that the Norwegian government has not
only chased down all the available medieval documents, but they've
translated, transcribed, indexed, and put 'em online for free. I can't
find where my Hinz great-grandfather came from, but I can tell you what
happened 23 generations ago in Norway. Later my ancestor (Gudbrand)
bought the rest of Harald and Ingeborg's land from them; the sale
agreement is about 2 pages long, and runs along the lines of "We will
provide Harald and Ingeborg with living quarters in the small house,
(amount of food), and they may live there for as long as they want as
long as there is peace between the families". I also have his probate
document from 1397 where his holdings were divided between his two sons
- all online, all searchable. Amazing use of technology.

I recall as a young whelp right out of college leaving W KS for VA and
being nearly overwhelmed by the obvious age difference--of course, I
knew of Colonial Virginia, but it's something different when the place
one was raised wasn't settled until significantly after the Civil War...

In Wisconsin, a building from 1850 is about as old as it gets. Hell,
the "new castle" in Newcastle, England is from what, 1500?

Dave Hinz