April 11: Is Anya a princess?

Last night, Knut gave a little story about a picture he had on his wall. Where he grew up, there are two 11th century churches right next to each other. Here’s the Wikipedia info:

The Sister Churches (Norwegian: Søsterkirkene) consist of two late 12th-century churches built side by side at Granavollen, Gran, Hadeland, in Norway.

According to local folklore, the two churches were commissioned by two sisters who had fallen out and therefore would not be seen in the same church. It is, however, not uncommon for medieval churches with different functions to be built close to one another. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Churches,_Norway)

I went to look up this infomation (which I found and shared with you). But then I also wanted to see where this was on Google Earth. When I zoomed in, I found a pin marker that I had set there prior to arriving. My mother-in-law had done quite a bit of genealogical work on the family heritage in the early 90s. I scanned the book to have it with me. But I also went through and highlighted each town name, put them in a spreadsheet, and then put a pin in Google Earth for each town that has a current corresponding town. It so happens that Anya’s paternal-grandfather’s maternal-grandfather came from Hadeland, who was named Hans Skarie (1846-1913) and immigrated to the USA. I emailed Knut, who said that the Skari(e) name is still in the area, though he doesn’t know any personally.

Here’s a little schematic of some of Anya’s family tree on Eric’s side:

• 17th generation: Alvard Skjalgs died of the Black Death of the 1350s!
• Anya’s paternal grandmother’s maternal grandfather’s mother is Torgjer Larsdotter Helland (1834-1914).“Torgjerd’s ancestral lines are tracked to ancient times-if one accepts ‘Ynglinga Tal’, a poem by Thjodolf of Hvin, Harald the Fairhair’s poet, which lists the first thirty Yngling Kings, with information about each King’s death and burial place.” Here’s the info on Ynglinga Tal on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ynglingatal. While the historicity is questioned, there seems to be some valid content in this list of Scandinavian kings. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yngling.

So, is Anya a Swedish princess? There’s some link to Harald the Fairhair, the Norsk king who unified three rival kingdoms after a battle near Stavanger in AD 872. We saw the memorial when Erin and Karen were visiting. Here’s more info., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverd_i_fjell