The Lavik Photograph Project

The Lavik Photograph Project

The Task of Identifying People and Locations in a Batch of Over Three Hundred Lavik Family Photographs and other items dating from the 1870’s to the 1930’s.

The photograph above in the header is listed as #9 in the batch of over three hundred photographs. The photo is of five adult children of the Rev. Rasmus Lavik – Peter, John, Dora, Hannah, and Marie. Complete detail is in the Volume Two listing of photographs. The Studio, stamped in the bottom right corner reads J. H. Hunter, Forman, North Dakota.

Introduction To The Photos

This is a story of a family’s immigration to America from Norway, a story told by over three hundred photos - spanning the period from the 1870’s to the 1930’s - that show how that family made their way.  A few photographs were taken in Norway – possibly before immigration – but most are photographs of the immigrants and the next generation in America.  For the Rasmus Lavik family, it was a story of success and sadness.  In that era, his first wife and some of his children were taken from him.  He appears to have had a happy second marriage, and the children who survived from both his wives were very accomplished – including a state legislator and state department head, two Lutheran ministers – one who had a church leadership position and authored a book on religion and a second book on Lavik family history, a daughter who married a Lutheran minister, and a son who was a successful football coach at Arizona State University.

This introductory page tells the story of how I obtained these photographs and the strategies I have used in an attempt to identify them. Subsequent pages present the Lavik ancestry in Norway, the story of Rev. Rasmus Lavik and his family, and a list of where he, his children, his siblings, nieces, and nephews and members of the families who intermarried, lived during their lives - as a tool to help identify the photos. Then there is a comprehensive index for the 319 items in the collection, and pages that, forty items by forty items, presents each item with a description of that item. I posted forty photos at a time, because originally that was the capacity of a word document - the format in which I originally prepared this information.  I am a descendant of Rasmus Lavik’s sister Agatha, and am fortunate that some of my family members are included in these photographs - including one of my great-grandmother Anna Markuson Ofstedahl.

I have enlisted the help of numerous descendants of Rasmus Lavik.  I did this by sending a disk with all the scanned photographs, and a listing of each with whatever I could uncover about that photograph.  It is clear that this process – sending each a disk drive with the photos and a separate narrative explaining each photo – was not user-friendly.  I hit upon doing text documents that tell the story, include each photo and what I know about each – something that can be emailed to others, and easily edited to add new information.  I now have converted those documents to a web page format - and this page is the introduction to the photos and the process I have used in identifying them.

After going through and posting the hundreds of photos – and revising the history that goes with each, it’s amazing that well over one hundred thirty-five of the photos have been identified.  I have to hope that with an easy interface for descendants to see – there are still some unidentified ones that they will recognize, or that they will have photos that match in their own family collections.  As I go through some of the baby photos and wedding photos, it seems like it might be a stretch to think that they will ever be identified – but one can hope.  I look at different websites of unidentified old photos and the challenge with those pages seems similar to the problem identifying the Lavik photos – with the exception that each photograph was in this collection because of some connection to the Lavik family, makes it more likely that it can be identified through the Lavik family connection.  It makes me glad that I saved these, because it is a period in history – and what photos the family had and kept tells a lot about them.

I am not getting any younger, and I would like to leave this project in a state that others can benefit from all the research, carry it on in any way that they might know how, and have it spread as widely as possible.  I have thought of whether to gift the photos back to direct descendants of family members – or to the Norwegian-American Historical Association – but that is limiting them to one location.  If I can prepare them in this interface so that every direct descendant can have easy access, it will be better that so many more people have a user-friendly access to these photos and the story they tell.

So many people have helped identify photos, and their help has been appreciated and included.  I have listed those I can recall at the end of this first page.  I still welcome and would be grateful for any assistance, help, or advice in identifying the remaining photos – and updating the information about descendants.

The Lavik Photo Project - How I got the Photos and Figuring Out Ways To Identify Them

In 2000, I came into possession of about three hundred photographs, many one hundred years old, left in a Lavik household in North Dakota after the last family member there passed away - and turned over to a local museum, which did not want the photos due to lack of identification. 

Jay and Dorothy Bergh Steinberg and I came into contact through the Internet.  Dorothy was related to John R. Lavik’s wife Sophie Bergh Lavik, and they had a “shirttail” interest in one of the photos.  As they told the story to me, these photos were turned over to the local historical society in Sargent County, North Dakota from a Lavik estate – likely after the last person on the old Lavik homestead, probably the widow of Anton Lavik, had died. 

Only about ten of the photos had names or any identifying items written on them.  They were of no use to the museum, and were going to be destroyed.  One of the ten identified was my own great-grandmother, Anna Markuson, wife of the Rev. John Ofstedahl – which piqued my early interest in the batch.  The Steinbergs rescued them to look for their own need, which appeared to be only one photo, and then they said they had no further use for them and said they would likely destroy them.  That concerned me, so I sent them a check to ship them to me, and they came into my possession.  I am relieved to have rescued these treasures from certain destruction, but I know the family members really should have these, and with this research project – and releasing all the photos on these pages – I can get the photos to all descendants who have an interest.

I later was in touch with the late E. Clair Halvorson of Milnor, who worked with that local Sargent County (North Dakota) historical society, and had been involved in looking at the photos.  He indicated to me much later, that many items that had been in the Lavik household (the Lavik farm was about two miles west of Milnor) were given to the historical society at the same time as the photos.  A clerical collar of Rasmus was one of the items, and is in the museum holdings.  Additionally, about 2005, Mr. Halvorson sent me a few other things that were included beside the photos – a wedding invitation to Ingvald’s 1923 wedding, election certificates for Anton’s election to the North Dakota state legislature, and even a small book with Theodore Lavik’s name stamped in it.

The first task.  There were three hundred nineteen items and the first task was to scan them all.  I now realize that when I started scanning the photos, I didn’t really have a process or plan for what I truly was going to do with them.  The project evolved as I moved into it more and I started to grasp what I had on my hands.

There were a handful of photos from Norway, a few were more “modern” black and whites (some were dated in the 1930’s), but most were in the period of 1880-1930, printed on card stock.  Roughly ten of those photographs had a name or any other information written on them, and the remaining over three hundred items were unidentified.  Many of the photos of unidentified people did have an identifying mark from the studio at which they were taken, which almost always also listed a location for the studio.

Scanning and Organizing.  I scanned the photos in batches, as time allowed.  I can tell from the dates of the scans that I did the first batch in 2005, and the last batch in 2011.  I was in the state legislature during the first scans, and I suspect I did not have a lot of time to work on this project.  But the first priority was to get the photographs digitized so that they could be easier to analyze and make available on a broader basis.

I numbered each of the over three hundred photos in the order that I scanned them.  This has been a flawed process, because there are similar photos, or photos from a similar period (like the few from Norway) that I did not batch together in the scanning process.  I just numbered them in the order they were scanned.  Now that there is such a history of the photos by each number as the project moved on, I have not attempted to renumber them by location or identification. The comprehensive index on a subsequent page attempts to address this problem and allow anyone to see together the photos of the same people or from the same studio.

Creating a document that recorded information on the photographs.  I started a companion text document.  That document listed each photograph by number, and listed what I knew about the photo.  It might be a generic description (such as “older man and woman”) and it would include the studio and location of the studio if listed.  This gave me a place to record any identification or additional information that I was able to develop.

In this process, I recorded the identification from the very few photographs that had one, roughly ten of the entire batch.  One was a photograph taken in Red Wing, Minnesota, and had “Mrs. John Ofstedahl” written on the back.  Since John and Anna Ofstedahl were my great-grandparents, this was a very exciting and motivating development.  No one in our family had a copy of this photo.  Rasmus Lavik was the uncle of John Ofstedahl, but since John’s mother Agatha Lavik was the oldest of nine siblings – and Rasmus was the youngest – there was more of a sibling relationship between Rasmus and the Ofstedahl siblings.  As mentioned earlier, three of the Ofstedahls were Lutheran ministers, as was Rasmus.  Rasmus emigrated from Norway with one of the Ofstedahl brothers.  That meant to me that there might be other photos of Ofstedahl family members in this batch – which has turned out to be true.

The Photos in the original collection that had identifications. Since so few were identified originally - generally by a handwritten note on the front or back of a photograph, these were included on the document recording information on all items. Based on this, there was an effort to see if there could be conclusions drawn about other photos from those that had identifications. Among those with original identifications were: 1) the photo of Mrs. John Ofstedahl, with the writing on the back shown a little later in this narrative; 2) a photo that had “Love, Valborg” written on the front; 3) a photo that had George Holden written on it; 4) a photo that had Clara, Harold and Melvin - wife and children of Ingvald Lavik, written on the back; 4) a photo that has “Anges” written on it; 5) A photo from Japan with “Anna, 13 mos” written on it; 6) A photo with three young children, and a written note of “two of Ruth’s play mates”, implying that the third person was Ruth (Lavik); 7) A photo with the note Francis Peter Irhman (this was so hard to read, that I didn’t get the last name right for many years); 8) A photo that has the card “B Marie Grimsrud” tucked in it; 9) A photo that had “Love you, Norma” written on it; 10) A photo has “Gudrun Leonora Grimsrud” written on it; 11) A photo has “Marvin N. Anderson” written on it, with a confirmation date in the 1930’s; and 12) Written on the back of a photo of a mother and baby is “Mrs. Wm. Whiteley and Ralph Whiteley.  To Mrs. Carrie (?) Matson”. I didn’t number Anna Ofstedahl’s photo - so the remaining identifications are the roughly ten that I referred to as the only ones identified in a batch of over three hundred photographs.

Additionally, there is one photograph taken in Norway that has Rasmus’ name on the reverse side, but doesn’t appear to be him. There is a photo that has Tjorjorg Lavik’s name on the back, but is of the Simon Ofstedahl family - indicating possession, not identification. There are a few postcards, and the salutation or signature is of a family member. There are a couple of holiday cards with a family member’s name on them. And there is an election card for Peter Lavik’s 1908 campaign for County Attorney in Polk County that has Anton Lavik’s name written on the back.

All in all, very few identifications originally, but in a few cases, something to go on in identifying other items.

Reaching out to others.  As I rediscovered family history in the 1993-94 period, I reached out to see if I could find Lavik family members.  When I started back into family history in that 1993-1994 period, I was able to contact a John Lavik in the Twin Cities, who turned out to be the grandson of the Rev. John Lavik.  His father, Paul Lavik, was alive and living in Ohio.  I was able to get in touch with him at the time of my first work on the Lavik photos (he died in 2010 at age 95).  Paul was computer literate and had an email address, and was very helpful. 

When I explained to him about the photographs, he eventually sent me thirteen scanned photographs of his father’s family, which included a good variation of pictures of early Laviks – his father, his uncles and aunts, one of Rasmus, one of Rasmus’ first wife, and a cross section of periods.  Some were of them when they were younger, and some when they were older.  It was an immense help in identifying some of the photos I had – and there were even some of the same photos included in the Lavik batch.  It was a good head start, and I used these photos to match with photos I had that included the same people.

A few years later, after scanning all the photos, and identifying more, I identified most of the living great-grandchildren of Rasmus Lavik - I reached out to them one by one. Almost to a person, they were interested. I sent each a CD with all the photos, and some additional identifications came from that - and will be noted as I go through the posted photos. However, the interface was hard, having to go through three hundred photos and then look at a separate document that had the information about the photo. I suspect that was too hard for many of them to do, and by posting them on these pages, if might offer an easier bite at the apple for those descendants.

Now, to the thirteen photos sent by Paul Lavik. . .
They were scanned at low resolution, so they are not as big as the other photos in the collection. The first one on the left below is of Andrew Lavik, the oldest child of Rasmus and Ingeborg, born in 1874 and who died weeks after his twenty-sixth birthday in 1900. The second photo, bottom right, is of the six children of Rasmus and Ingeborg - left to right in back Peter, Marie, Andrew, John and in the front left Hannah and Dora. This photo matches one shown in the Lavik collection as Item #64. That photo was shown to have been taken at the Peck Studio in Zumbrota, Minnesota.

The above photo, the last of the thirteen images provided by Paul Lavik, included Peter, John, Dora, and Marie. This photograph is from the same sitting as the photo that leads off this page - taken at the J. H. Hunter Studio in Forman, North Dakota. It appears that there were different photographs taken at this same time.

The Paul Lavik photos were a helpful start to the early identification of photos in the Lavik collection. It is Paul that provided the identification of the daughters of Rev. Rasmus Lavik by Ingeborg Tuff - and I have no other source but his identification to apply to any photos of those daughters. His photo of Ingeborg Tuff is the only photo I know of her, and does not yet appear to match other photos in the Lavik collection.

Finding Photographs or Rasmus Lavik and his family members in publications and other places. After Paul Lavik’s helpful assistance with identified Lavik family photographs, the next task was finding other sources for identified photos of Rasmus and members of his family. The Norwegian-American Historical Association had two photos of Rasmus, there were pictures of family members in the Norwegian-American Pastor Directories, a Sargent County (North Dakota) history had a photo of Rasmus and Antonette, the Norwegian-American pastor directory had photos of some family members, and some Lavik descendants had photos that either matched one in the collection - or was similar enough that allowed for the identification of others. I have also posted these photographs below.

From the Norwegian-American Historical Association . . .

Both these photos of Rasmus Lavik were in the files of the Norwegian-American Historical Association. The one on the left, shown with his beard, must have been from a common photo database of the time - as there is one of the Rev. John Ofstedahl in the same size and format with the same lettering below. The one on the right, without his beard, has the markings of the Peck Studio, which was in Zumbrota, Minnesota - and where a photograph of his six children with Ingeborg Tuff Lavik was taken in the mid-1880’s as well. The photograph on the right is identical to Item #310 in the Lavik Collection.

From a Sargent County, North Dakota County Sources . . .

Comparing The Norwegian-American Pastor Directory Photos To Those in the Lavik Collection . . .

There were directories of Norwegian-American Lutheran pastors published in 1914, 1927, 1952, and 1962 - and a Norwegian-American educators directory published in 1924. Rasmus Lavik and other members of the Lavik and Ofstedahl families are represented in every edition. But since Rasmus Lavik had many connections in the Norwegian-American pastoral community, this was a fertile location to attempt to match photos in the directories with photos in the Lavik collection. Here are some examples:

Matching studio markings on photographs with studio directories - to places where the Laviks lived.  Many of the photographs listed studios as a mark on the card stock photographs.  Matching those studios and cities with listing in a directory might give you the years that that studio operated, and more information that might match with an individual Lavik family member. That is why there is a separate page that indexes all the locations in which family members lived - it will be possible to match up the locations of family members with locations where photographs were taken. In many of the references, it will give information about the photographers. In many cases where there were pictures taken in the Lavik collection, the photographer was of Norwegian heritage.

A large number of photographs in the Lavik Collection were taken in Minnesota - as Rasmus Lavik was in Goodhue County after arriving from Norway, went to school in Northfield, and was posted in Red Lake Falls in the early 1890’s. Family members were in Minnesota, as well as friends. Some family members I have been able to place, Simon Ofstedal and his family were in a photograph taken in Fertile, Minnesota. Some of the photographs were taken in Wheaton, Minnesota, and I have not been able to link the people in those phtographs to the Laviks.. The Minnesota Historical Society maintains a Directory of Early Minnesota Photographers that was very helpful in placing information about photographs marked with Minnesota studio photographers. It was very helpful in giving information about all the photographs marked with a Minnesota photographer. Some of those markings are posted below for reference.

These aids - for the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Norwegian-American photographers have been invaluable in placing photographs in time and place. I linked the Minnesota and Wisconsin directories above - and have given the reference to the other two books.

Additionally, one of the photographic studio references scanned above is that of F. W. Gertson of Lidgerwood. There are fifteen photographs from that studio in the Lavik Collection, and I have not been able to identify one of them. In one of my attempts recently to see if I could find some new way of attaching identities to those in unidentified photographs – I googled F. W. Gertson in Lidgerwood.  It popped up an amazing fact that thousands of his glass negatives had been rescued by Gerry Parker, a retired dentist in Casselton, North Dakota.  Some of them were in identifying envelopes, and I have sent him Gerston photos to see if, over time, he can make matches.  It has been a helpful connection.

Information About the Photographers. As I posted each of the photos in the collection, and listed the photographic studio and city of the studio - as mentioned above - I listed information about them. Mostly that information was from the state directories, but also from censuses and other records. In looking over all the references on items in the Lavik Collection, an overwhelming number of the photographers were Norwegian-American.

Re-scanning some photos at high resolution to see if things in the background help with an identification. In working with this photo project over twenty years, sometimes I have left it alone for a year or two while I am working intensely in my job or other things, and I come back to it and something strikes me that I hadn’t considered before.  One of those things was rescanning some of the originally scanned photos at a higher resolution to see if there’s a hint in the background that I hadn’t seen before.  Two examples are below:

The photograph above, Item #270 in the Lavik Collection, was originally scanned at a not very high resolution. In that photo, five people are shown in front of crates. Looking at this photograph later, I realized I might learn something from rescanning the writing in the background at a higher or clearer level.  This is what happened, listed as Item #270a, that photograph is on the right. With the background boxes scanned at a higher resolution, “Mattson's Home Bakery, Devils Lake” is shown. Karen (Hagen) Mattson was the sister of Antonette Lavik.  In this higher resolution photo – I was able to determine that the crates in the background read, “Mattson’s Home Bakery, Devils Lake”, which is where Karen Mattson and her family lived and worked – and her husband is shown in one census as a baker.  It helped determine who was in this photo - likely Peter and Karen Mattson, one of their daughters, and two of their son-in-laws. Then there was this next photo – of a parade on a dirt street:

A photograph from the Lavik batch, Item #275 and shown above left, showed a horsedrawn boat on a dirt street in an apparent parade. When I noticed that there was a store front in the background, I scanned that at a higher resolution. In rescanning the sign on a building in the background of the parade photo - shown above right and in the Lavik collection as Item #275b - it identifies "Goodwin Land Co." I googled that reference, and found an old 1909 insurance directory, which indicates a business by that name in Aberdeen, South Dakota. While I was at it, I also scanned the items on the boat in the photo, shown in the Lavik index as Item #275a, which showed “Golden Hind” and E and R around other letters, indicating Elizabeth Rex (or Regina), and indicating that this was to be Sir Francis Drake’s boat That information was interesting, but the real breakthrough was locating the land company and placing the photo in Aberdeen, South Dakota in 1909. Carl Grimsrud, who married Dora Lavik in 1904, was a pastor here from 1902 to 1908.  It is possible that this was taken during the Grimsruds’ time in Aberdeen and puts a context to that photo.  Sargent County, North Dakota is not all that far away. Aberdeen is also the county seat of Brown County – and in the northern Brown County township of Palmyra lived the children of Rasmus’ brother Knute as well as children of his nephew Andrew Ofstedal.  There were many possible connections of family members to this photo.

Photos From Norway. There are about ten photos that were taken in Norway. The odds are high that they were sent from Norway to the United States, and were of family members. With Rasmus immigrating in 1871, photography was still taking off in Norway. There are markings on the Norway photos, and most are from photographers in Bergen, although one is from “Christiania”, which became Oslo. There are two significant photographers. Marcus Selmer, who took one of the photos, was the first professional photographer in Norway, and traveled the country taking photos of Norwegians in native dress that helped develop the folk culture presentation. Max Behrends was another well-known photographer with a photo in this collection. The photos are most likely of family members, but except for one that has written on the back, “R Lavik, 49 years of age”, there are no markings. I will relate what is known about the photographers in the sections with the actual photos.

Discovering that a photograph listing a studio might just where the photo was reprinted from a negative, not the place where the photo was actually taken. One photograph in the Lavik batch was printed with a studio from Moorhead, Minnesota. (the studio was none other than that of O. E. Flaten, mentioned above):

The photo at the upper left was Item #100 in the Lavik Collection, and for many years I could not identify who was in the photo. O. E. Flaten was a studio where many of the photographs in the collection were taken. Then the photograph on the right was emailed to me by Helge Morken from Norway.  It is a photo of Knut Lavik and his wife Ingeborg Flatekval.  The name of the studio is Sostrene V. D. Fehr, and Helge stated that this was a photographer from Voss in Norway.  It appears that the photo of Knut was taken from photo #100.  This also helps me identify who is in the previous photograph.  Knut died in 1917, so this photo could have been almost any time before then. Knut was the second of two brothers of Rasmus Lavik by that name. He is mentioned elsewhere on this website - as a native of Lavik, he bought the Ofstedal farm from Anders and Agate Lavik Ofstedal when they left for America. Then we ended up living on a farm in Dagestad, near Voss, and took the name Knut Anderson Dagestad. Since Dagestad was just outside Voss, it places Knut in the right place with the studio where the Norwegian photo was taken.

The Sostreme V. D. Fehr studio was in the Preus Museum’s online register of photogaphers: “The Sisters Fehr , also referred to as the Sisters by Fehr, was a photography company at Voss . It was established by Anne Dorothea von der Fehr and her sister Charlotte Rebekka von der Fehr in 1891. Mimi Jansen took over the company around 1895, and then sold it to Per Braaten in 1939.”  It is unclear if the company held the same name through the changes in ownership. This at least means the photograph was taken after 1891.  Their youngest son was born in 1882,

Which – if this photo was taken not long after 1891, fits his age. Knut had children born between 1864 and 1882. If the boy is Hallvard, he was the youngest child, born in 1882. He would be about the age of the boy in this photograph about 1891.

In summary, the two photos are identical, but have two different studio markings - one for a studio in Voss, and one in a studio in Moorhead, Minnesota. Given that Knut never appears to have left Norway, the Voss studio photo must have been the original, and a print must have been made from the negative in Moorhead, Minnesota. This raises an interesting possibility – that there were other photos in the batch with the same process having taken place. Maybe over time we will discover another.

And finally, the Ofstedahls . . .

My link to Rasmus Lavik is through his sister Agate, my great-great-grandmother. When I received the Lavik photo collection twenty years ago, my interest was due to the Ofstedahl connection - and the fact that one of the ten or so photos with an identification was my great-grandmother Anna Markuson Ofstedahl. There were two other photos in the original batch that were clearly of members of the Ofstedahl family - one from Grafton, North Dakota of twins in baptismal clothes, Esther and Ledwin Ofstedahl, siblings of my grandfather Carl Ofstedahl, the twins having been born in 1898. Also there was a photo of Simon Ofstedal and Kari Tuff Ofstedal. This photo was in a local Polk County Minnesota history and is a match - although for a reason I don’t understand the studio listed on the card is from Duluth, Minnesota.

I skimmed these three off the top and didn’t include them in the list of the collection - so I thought it important to include them here. Since working on identifying the larger collection, I have identified two other Ofstedahl photos - one of Andrew Ofstedahl, his wife Maria, and her brother Nels Ofstedal (which is Item #289 on one of the following pages) - and one of Simon and Kari Tuff Ofstedahl and their children, taken about 1897 in a studio in Fertile, Minnesota - with the name of Tjorborg Lavik - Rasmus and Agate’s sister, written on the back (which is Item #314 on one of the following pages).

This is why the Ofstedahls are included in the family members and locations on the page in this website. The three photographs of them are posted below:

In Summary . . .

This page has tried to tell the story of the ways I have used different techniques to identify the 319 Lavik Collection items - from scanning, cataloging, comparing to identified photos of relatives, local histories, and pastor directories - to using early photographer directories to place in time and place many of these photos. I have inventoried every family member and extended family member for Rasmus Lavik and tried to match their locations with the locations of the photographs. I have successfully identified at least a third of them. Now I am hoping that by telling Rasmus’ life story, by showing how I have tried to identify the photos, and by posting each one and what I know about each one - that you can help identify even more of the photos in the Lavik Collection.

Acknowledgements

In the almost twenty years I have been working on this project, there have been many Lavik descendants who have been very helpful.  Some have died during the process.  I did not keep a list as I went along, so I am reconstructing the list from memory and old emails and it may not be complete. I apologize for leaving anyone out. If I did, let me know so I can fix it!

Kay Funk and Michael Collins – Kay is a granddaughter of Rudy Lavik, and she and Mike manage a Funk/Lavik/Collins/Stafford tree on ancestry.com. They were invaluable from the beginning, and I had a chance to visit with them in Sacramento and enjoyed it greatly.

Paul Lavik – Paul was the son and last surviving child of John R. Lavik, passing away in 2010.  His major contributions are described earlier in this document. He really kick-started the process by the early identification of photos.

Clair Halvorson – Clair worked with the Sargent County Historical Society and consulted on the photos.  He also forwarded some additional items that were going to be destroyed, including some election certificates for Anton Lavik.  He passed away in 2011.

Joyce Tsongas - Joyce was the great-granddaughter of Antonette Lavik’s sister Karen Matson. She was very helpful with photo identifications and we had a nice visit in Sacramento while I was Resources Secretary. Joyce passed away in 2017.

Joe Langemo - A descendant of Dora Lavik, Joe helped identify some of the photos of members of Dora and Carl Grimsrud’s family.

Norma Michail - daughter of Valborg Lavik and grandddaughter of John R. Lavik, assisted in photograph identification and has done extensive research on the Lavik ancestry.

Dallas Loken and Don Perrier - descendants of Rasmus Lavik’s nephew Andrew Ofstedal. Dallas and Don helped identify the photo of Andrew Ofstedal that is in the Lavik Collection.

Helge Morken - a Lavik family relative from Norway, who helped with at least one of the photograph identifications, and sent a digital copy of one of the photographs, suggesting it was originally taken in Norway (Item #100).