Need Norwegian Tranlation Help

Question

While we were doing the Source-A-Thon, I added to the biographies of some of my Norwegian ancestors text in Norwegian that I can't translate. Help would be appreciated. I felt it would tell me about them, something of their marriages, and movements.

It can be found at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Needs_Translation,_Rowley_Name_Study.  It is listed under Rowley because that is just where I stuck it.

Answer 1

I've got lots of other things to do, but I looked up Hermund Erikson Møen. It says, among other things, that he "dreiv heille Hauge", meaning that he used the entire Hauge farm. I don't know if this is a peculiar thing for Norway, but "bruke" or the almost synonymous "drive" is normally translated with "use" in English. A very common term for "farmer" in Norwegian is "Gårdbruker" which literally means "farm user". It does not relate to ownership of the farm, and is used for "self owned" (selveide) farms and tenant or leased farms alike. I'm a little at loss here myself with respect to the terminology.

Comments

And thanks to you too Judy, and to all who replied in this thread. Now I know how to translate "drive" or "bruke" a farm.

Maybe we should set up a Norwegian-English glossary for genealogists somewhere on Wikispace.

---

Leif, There is a good glossary on the familysearch Wiki. It does not cover the discussion we have been having though. To me "worked the farm" would make me think he was a tenant. It seems less inclusive than "farmed".

---

Yes, I agree about that, Lynda.

---

Back to square one, then :)

I find it very strange that such a rich language as English doesn't have a clear and unambiguous verb for the practice of plowing, sowing, and harvesting a patch of land during a certain period of time. "Farming a farm" is weird.

---

Well, I wouldn't say "he farmed all of Hauge farm", I'd say "he farmed all of Hauge".

Somehow this makes me think of the Swedish farmers who were "hälftenbrukare" - they evidently farmed half of something. I don't think I have ever attempted a translation.

---

The mind boggles at the concept of that ever being translated literally into half a farmer. Maybe he got chopped down the middle by his plough.  

Perhaps you could say he shared a farm, but even that could be interpreted otherwise.

---

The term "use" does actually appear to cover the act of farming. See the discussion of the word "Usufruct" (which appears to be the Latin term for tenancy) in Wikipedia.

I've got a "Hælvningsbruger" too. It's rather uncommon in Norway.

---

Interesting, the usufruct.

As for "hälftenbrukare" I'm not sure how closely related I am to anyone with that designation. I've just moved away from working with my paternal grandfather's ancestors who were farmers in a small part of Västergötland. I have paid more attention to exploring the kinship networks than to the forms of landowning and use. I have noticed, though, that in the 1700s the self-owning farmers married within their group and the farmers of the land owned by the manor ("frälsebönder") married within their group. In the 1800s the pattern was loosened, so I have branches from both.

---

Ah. Good explanation of your hælvningsbruger, too.

---

That's one I didn't see coming