Introduction to the Lavik Pages
An introduction and Guide to the Lavik Information on This Website
My great-great-grandmother was Agate Lavik (Ofstedal). Her youngest brother was Rasmus Lavik. They were two of nine siblings born to Anders Lavik and Dorothy Vetlejord in the Eksingadalen Valley of Norway - northeast of Bergen - which is shown on the map above.. Agate married Anders Simonson Flatekval - and by the time they immigrated to America in 1878, they used the name Ofstedal. Rasmus was not that much older than some of Agate’s Ofstedal sons - and in fact, Rasmus immigrated with Andreas Ofstedal in 1871. By 1878, when Anders and Agate immigrated with John, Dorothy, and Anna - all the Ofstedals were in America. Rasmus and Agate’s siblings Knut, Tjorborg, immigrated as well, as did some children of other siblings.
Rasmus and Agate and their families had full lives after immigrating. On this website there is a separate Ofstedal section with many pages on the Ofstedal ancestry, Anders and Agate, and pages for each of their seven children.
This is the introduction to the many Lavik pages on this website and will provide the background for each of those pages. The heart of these pages is the 319 photographs and family items left on the Rasmus Lavik farm in North Dakota. When the last family member died there, these items were given to the local museum. They were going to destroy these photos, and through an intermediary, I managed to rescue them in 2000. Only ten of the photographs were identified, and I embarked on a process to identify them. I have now identified over 135, and have posted them on this site in the hopes of involving more people in identifying others.
I scanned each of the items in the Lavik Photograph Collection and then started a research process. I collected information on the Lavik ancestry in Norway; I researched the life of Rasmus Lavik and his family; I identified all the places Rasmus, his children, and his extended lived; and I contacted as many of the descendants of Rasmus Lavik that I could find. The results are the information on these pages.
The different pages in the Lavik section can be accessed above by selecting “Lavik” and selecting which page you want to go to, or by clicking on one of the links below to go directly there::
A biography of Rev. Rasmus Lavik and his immediate family members.
An index of the 319 images in the Lavik Photograph Collection, including references to the names of anyone identified; the studios where a photograph might have been taken; and the cities in which the studios were located. Each image has a number associated with it and those numbers are the references in the index.
Eight pages that include forty images each, ordered chronologically by the numbers attached to each item; each image has an explanation of what we know about it. In some cases, there are multiple scans of the same item - with the back sometimes have studio information, or the small studio location being listed on the front of the photo rescanned at a higher resolution:
The goal of all this is to provide family history for Lavik descendants, and also hope that more of the images can be identified. There are roughly ten photos that were taken in Norway. Some of them are bound to be family members, but right now we don’t know who they are. In any event, this process will preserve these photos and make them more accessible to anyone who has an interest in this family. As always, I welcome additions, corrections, or general feedback.
As stated elsewhere, this a wonderful story of an extended immigrant family who lived in Norway for centuries, and then came to America and made their way successfully in many walks of life. It has been a pleasure to post all this information and be able to share it with you.