New Zealand to Norway: The Amazing Postcard Trail

Jan 17, 2017

By Juliette Sivertsen

New Zealand to Norway: The Amazing Postcard Trail

As I looked out to the snow-dripped Norwegian fjords piercing the skyline, I uttered to my grandfather,

“I’m home. Thank you.”

That was odd.

Firstly, it was odd because I’d never met my grandfather.

He died when my father was just a little boy. Heck, I didn’t even know if he would have liked to have been called Grandfather. Maybe Farfar. Or the English version, Grandad. Papa? Gramps?

The second odd thing about that moment was that I actually very far away from home. In fact, I had travelled from the opposite side of the world – New Zealand. This was my first time visiting Norway.

The cold whipped around my face, stinging my cheeks and lips. Yet inside, I felt warm, cosy and…well, home.

My grandfather, Finn, was from Bergen and the surname I have carried all my life belonged to his forefathers. Sivertsen. Son of Sivert. He emigrated to New Zealand in February 1914 as a teenager; perhaps he had been forewarned of some political instability in Europe. But his family history was lost after he passed away when my own father was just a boy.

All the information Dad had about his father’s ancestry was held in a collection of postcards sent between family members, some dating back to 1900. Dad kept them all in a special place in the hopes they would one day provide the key to his lineage. Written in old Norsk and impossibly difficult to get translated in New Zealand, they still carried important details such as names, addresses, dates.

As a child, I would pride myself on my Scandinavian heritage.

“I’m a QUARTER Norwegian!” I would proudly state to anyone enquiring after my distinctly foreign surname.

At age 13, I travelled to Norway with my parents on a family-finding mission.

Day after day in Bergen, we searched through the archives of births, deaths and marriages, trying to put together this family jigsaw puzzle. The name Sivertsen, in New Zealand, was as rare as hens’ teeth. We did not expect it to be hard. But in Norway, we discovered that ‘Sivertsen’ was the equivalent of ‘Smith’.

The day before we were due to depart, we made a breakthrough.

Dad had two second-cousins, living in Bergen.

With his limited Norwegian and their limited English, they formed a conversation along the lines of,
“Hi! We’re your long lost relatives from New Zealand.”
“That’s great, we’ll pick you up at 7pm.”

From that moment, a bond grew between two families from the opposite ends of the earth, but both sharing the same heritage.

I couldn’t help but feel grateful. Grateful to my grandfather, who perhaps guided his son and grandchild to his home.
Grateful for my own father, whose desire to travel over 17,000 kilometres across the world in search of family, never faded.
Grateful for written communications between family members, scattered through time, which were collected, preserved and later joined together like a puzzle.

Most of all, I was grateful for the family in Bergen who welcomed us with open arms.

Since then, three of my siblings have also made the journey to Norway and I later returned in my 20s. The desire to explore more of my grandfather’s homeland has never faded. To explore more of the world and uncover other family secrets we may not yet know about.

Miles away from my physical home, Norway will still always feel like home to me.

One day I will return for longer. One day I will journey from one homeland to another to follow the postcard trail, documenting each step taken by my ancestors from years gone by. One day I will recreate this journey and turn it into a book and as a tribute to all those who search for family in a foreign land.

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About the Author

Juliette Sivertsen

Juliette Sivertsen is a New Zealand-born journalist and travel blogger. She has a passion for all sorts of adventures but in particular, travels which include snorkelling, scuba diving or skiing. Follow her adventures at www.snorkelstosnow.com

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