The Finkle Family Album
First Generation
Thurston Finkle (1838-1920)
Thurston was born on December 4, 1838 in Vestre Slidre, Oppland, Norway. He emigrated to America in March 1850 with his father Finkel Finkelsen, his mother Anne Tostensdatter, and siblings Finkel Finkelsen, Marit Finkelsen, and Knud Finkelsen. Thurston's original name was Tosten (named after his maternal grandfather being the second born boy, in the Norwegian patronymic style) and was sometimes referred to as Thorstein. At some point after their arrival in Wisconsin, the surname spelling was changed to Finkleson, thence shortened to Finkle.
He married another Norwegian emigre, Sophie Amalie Michelet, on May 24, 1864 in Viroqua, Wisconsin. Sophie was born in 1843 in Christianstad, Norway, but emigrated to America with her family. She, her mother and father, and two brothers left Christiania Norway on June 27, 1851 arriving in New York on August 30, 1851. They sailed aboard the bark Incognito under the command of Capt. S. Christensen. The Michelets were an old French family from Metz who emigrated to Norway in the mid-1600s and has had many family members in high government positions in Norway. . Sophie died in 1925 and is interred with her husband in San Bernardino, California.
They had three children, Christian Frederick (later changed to Frederick Cecil), my grandfather; Theresa; and George.
This picture must have been taken around the late 1850s as Thurston appears to be a strpping young lad in his late teens or early twenties.
His father was granted 40 acres in public lands in Menasha, Manitowoc County on February 22, 1858. His wife's father, Jacob Post Michelet, was likewise granted 40 acres on February 19, 1857 in LaCrosse, Bad Ax County, Wisconsin.
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