Nordland families

[1] Some basic characteristics of a Nordland family are that they were socially established since the centuries before 1800, that they lived on the countryside, where they had typical burgher culture and professions, that they married each other, that they bore permanent family names, something that very few people had (ordinary people used patronyms), and that they often had roots outside Norway, mostly in Denmark and the Duchies.

[1] Among these are travel journals by Gustav Peter Blom, the Swedes Johan Erik Forsström, Sven Nilsson, and J.W.

Zetterstedt, the German Leopold von Buch, and the Englishmen Sir Arthur de Capell Brooke and Frederick Metcalfe.

[3] To Nordland families belong many nationally prominent persons, among others trader Erasmus B.K.

[citation needed] Otherwise the concept occurs among other places in Jakob Schøning's Nordlands-slegten Schøning i 360 aar (1928),[4] Johan Hveding's Nordlandsslekten Hveding (1944),[4] Nils Parelius's Nordlandsslekten Mentzonis opprinnelse (1956)[4] and Gerd Fjellstad's Fra adel til bumenn : Nordlandsslekter (1996).

Trader and island owner Erasmus B.K. Zahl was a typical representative of the Nordland families. As such he is known through Knut Hamsun's famous character Mack .
Photograph: Mr Finne
Nordland families are often associated with the region's several trade seats. One is Lauvøya , which has been possessed by, among others, the Jentoft family and the Hveding family.
Photograph: Commons user Knut