Liavaag.org

Family history and genealogy

Here is info about Morten René's family history with some genealogy about Liavaag as it has been told by former family members.

It has been told that my great grandfather had two smiling scars in his face. In a rioting in New York a bullet grazed his face, the other scar came from a mutiny where some says that the Chinese crew had smoked opium. Once he felt overboard from a sail ship rigging where there were sharks in the water. Turning a sail ship takes some time, in fact it took hours before the crew found him. By then he had taken his clothes off and only kept his belt and knife (because of the sharks).

My great-grandfather Lauritz Ludvig Martin Liavaag was born in the Norwegian western city Ålesund. He was working as a crew at the Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition (7 West 44th Street New York) at the ship Wyatt Earp. Sir Hubert Wilkins wrote 25 July 1936:

In twenty three years experience with ships and expedition affairs I have never been associated with a man more suitable for such work than Mr Liavaag.

You can read more about Lauritz Liavaag and Lincoln Ellsworth at Antarctic Explorers, where it is confirmed that Lauritz was the only one besides Lincoln Ellsworth and Sir Hubert Wilkins, who was on all four Ellsworth expeditions. However, in 1939, things went wrong when he was on the last Ellsworth expedition. When he was refilling the fresh water tanks, the iceberg rolled over, and Lauritz broke his knee when he was underwater stucked in the ice. Ellsworth decided to abandon any further attempts at flying over the interior. It was widely reported in the world press, the New York Times and Sunnmørsposten, that Ellsworth chose to cancel the expedition because of this. Later, Lauritz worked together with his good friend Bernt Balchen for SAS at Fornebu airport in Oslo. Rumor has it that he also knew Robert Falcon Scott, and actually participated in the exploration expedition to the South Pole in 1912, but there is no documentation of this.

When Lauritz was sailing coal between Wales and Dieppe, he met a French girl from Dieppe. The girl was my great grandmother Georgette Germaine Victorine Bréard, who came from the family Bréard an Beamont. They moved to New York, Little Norway in Brooklyn, where my grandfather Bernard Georges René was borne. In addition to the Ellsworth expeditions, my great-grandfather also worked as a rigger at the construction of the Empire State Building. He used the nickname Betsy for my mother Elizabeth Georgette as well as Bernie for my grandfather Bernard Georges René.

Imaging that my grandfather had his own television more than thirty years before television even came to Norway! Back in the twenties he got five dollars from Bernt Balchen, and he used to play football on the roof of the skyscrapers. When his father Lauritz was injured at the South Pole (mentioned above), he and his mother moved from New York to Dieppe. In the end of the thirties they moved to Norway, when my grandfather still couldn't a single word Norwegian. During the war, he telegraphed while studying at Oslo Cathedral School. This was discovered and he was naturally sent to Grini detention camp. By quickly getting a job in the State on paper, more specifically the National Insurance Administration, he avoided penal servitude. 45 years later, July 1, 1989, he was given an audience at the Palace and the King's medal of merit in silver for long and faithful service in the National Insurance Administration.

He married my grandmother Halfrid Marie Øvervoll, who was the daughter of Bernt Martin and Johanna Elizabeth Overvoll. She grew up in Tromsø and Balsfjorden, north of Norway. Parts of the Øvervoll family are still living here. My mother Elizabeth Georgette was born in Oslo. She lived with her parents some years in Oscar's gate 1. During the Olympic Games in 1952 at Bislet, they had no problems hearing the bellow when Hjalmar Andersen won his gold medals. In the fifties they moved to Teie at Nøtterøy. My grandfather Bernard René was taken by surprise when he was called up into the U.S. army. He worked hard to not take part of the Korean War. Later they moved to Ekebergdalen where he established the Social Security office. In the end of the sixties my grandparents moved to Jessheim. This is a place close to the airport Gardermoen north of Oslo. My mother Elizabeth Georgette married my father Bjørn Harald. She stayed in Enebakk for many years.

The name Liavaag comes from Ålesund in Norway. More precisely, a little outside Ålesund. Liavaag can also be written as Liavåg. Lauritz's father, Bertel Gabriel Larsson Liavaag (b. 1866), was born in Hjørungavåg on Hareid (at the time Ulfsten Herad). Liavågen is located there, where the name comes from. Lauritz's mother, Jensine Elisabeth Severine Martiniusdatter (b. 1863), came from Borgund, which is today part of Ålesund municipality. They moved to Ålesund in 1892, and were thus part of the huge influx from the countryside to the city that took place at the end of the 19th century.

A little about Øvervoll too

My grandmother Halfrid Marie's parents were Johanne Elisabeth Mortensen Øvervoll (b. Olsdatter Ophus 1889) and Bernt Martin Mortensen Øvervoll (b. 1892). Her grandparents were Erik and Anna, but apart from the fact that they lived at Gammelstua (The Old House) in Balsfjorden, and had a daughter in Holstein Tromsø, I have little information (yet) about them. But, it has been said that my grandmother's Øvervoll ancestry goes back to Ole Knudsen and Karen Andersdatter [Opphus Gammelstua, Olsen, Eriksen]. Their daughter Birte Olsdotter from Aursfjordgaard and her brother Benjamin were both taking part of what is known as Kjervikmordet. They both were beheaded in 1742 at Ryøya in Malangen. The novel Solens sønn og månens datter is based on this incident, and was filmed in 1993 as a TV series.