Sites of Historic Interest
Vaga: Home of the Shellum family for at least two centuries before emigration in 1860s.
Fron: Part of Sur-Fron parish, home of Hundorp farm. Its hexagonal church dates to 1787.
Hundorp Farm: At the start of the second millennium this farm was owned by the Dale-Gudbrand family, the richest and most powerful clan in what became the Gudbrandsdal Valley. King Olaf's crafty triumph over Dale-Gudbrand in 1021 not only ended that family's power, but drove out paganism and ushered in Christianity to Norway's heartland.
Tretten: Johannes Nielsen Hagebakken and his wife, Ingeborg Erlandsdatter Hovsveen lived here before emigrating to Minnesota, where they homesteaded the farm where I grew up. Their lineage goes back to Haakon Hundorp, who is believed to have been born in 1220 at Hundorp farm.
Oyer: Ole Frantssen Lien lived here before he emigrated to Minnesota, where he and his wife, Lisbet Magelie, homesteaded the farm where my mother grew up. Their lineage also goes back to Haakon Hundorp.
Grytten, Romsdalen: My grandmother Anna Johnson's father, Johan Eilofsen Broste, lived at the Broste farm in the Romsdal Valley before emigrating to Minnesota. Some of the farms highlighted on the map, such as Hovde, were the homes of families that intermarried with Shellums after arrival in Minnesota. Elizabeth Grotta, who married the first son of Anders Andersen Sandboeie, lived in Isfjorden, at the end of the Romsdal Fjord.
The Gjerset farm, unmarked, is on the north side of the fjord, across from the village of Veblungsnes. Gurianna Gjerset was the wife of Jacob Shellum. The Gjerset farm is now a bed and breakfast.
