Vesturfarinn

Who Are We?

The East Iceland Emigration Center
is an organization of volunteers
interested in re-establishing contact
with the descendants of the people
who left East and Northeast Iceland (primarily Vopnafjörður, North- and South-Múlasýsla, Þistilfjörður) after
the eruption of Askja in 1875.

Recently...

Summer 2011, here we come!

Íslendingadagar

í Kanada - beint flug 2011

"Karlakórinn Drífandi", an East Iceland men's chorus, will be traveling to sing during August the Deuce and Gimli, Manitoba celebrations. They have invited others here in East Iceland to join them. Space is filling quickly - and those who are interested in finding and meeting relatives are asked to provide pertinent family information.

October, 2010

The Center will be closed, at least officially, from Oct. 6 until Nov. 8 - but we will still be collecting our mail and working on various ongoing projects (such as answering some of the family information requests received this past summer, when extra time was a bit scarce). Also, since September, we are pleased to have the good help of Hrund Snorradóttir for a few hours each week.

June-July-August 2010

What a wonderful - and busy - summer! We had many visitors: five groups under the auspices of ThorTravels, plus plenty of guests traveling on their own and just "dropping by".

A glance at the guestbook reports visitors from Italy, Belgium, Scotland, a documentary film crew from Germany wanting to know more about Iceland during the emigration years - and, of course, many native Icelanders and many of Icelandic background on a visit to their ancestral homeland.

As part of our welcome for our tour guests from North America, and as a change from dry facts about volcanic ash, hard economic times, crowded living conditions, we decided to "wake up" Friðrika Helgadóttir, born in 1867 at Vindbelgur in Mývatnssveit.

Friðrika's family was one of many whose lives were not directly changed by the eruption of Askja - but who nevertheless decided that emigration to Canada was their best hope. Her husband, Árni Sigfússon, was born at Rjúpnafell in Vesturárdalur. Árni's family, for many generations, were natives of East Iceland - specifically in and around Vopnafirði, and his mother from Borgarfjörður-eystri. Friðrika had one sister who remained in Iceland; Árni and his father's youngest brother were the last members of his family to leave. This was in 1893 - the year when the largest number of residents of Vopnafirði left: 163.

Their story was familiar to many of our guests this summer - much the same story as in their own families. The telling of this short history was made more personal by the "elf woman" walking along the roadside, who entered the bus to speak of visiting friends and neighbors for the last time before the ship came - and finding that some of them had also decided to leave; talking about her family, most having left already, and of her husband who had no close relatives left in Iceland - and of their two young sons whom she hoped would have many opportunities in a new land.

more

Mystery Image!

Do you know this family? The photo was taken in Glenboro, Manitoba.

Click here to see this photo enlarged.

Surface mail:

East Iceland Emigration Center,
Kaupvangur v/Hafnarbyggð
690 Vopnafjörður, Iceland

Office Hours:

Mondays & Thursdays
12:30-17:30

Office closed 1 Mar.-28 Mar. 2012

What Do We Do?

We offer genealogical services,
looking into the past to the time of
their ancestors, but also into the
present in search of relatives in
Iceland. We can help in planning
visits to places and people connected
with their family.

Why?

Because...

...every year, Western Icelanders from Canada, from the United States -
sometimes even from Brazil - come to Vopnafjörður and East Iceland. The Center's aim is to provide help to those descendants who come to visit their ancestral homeland.

They come singly, in small groups, and sometimes as a family group of several generations. They come with family
stories, with ancestral charts, with
family photographs - almost always
with very good basic information about names and places in Iceland.

And with a feeling that they are somehow returning home, they stand on their ancestors' old farms, looking across the fields, rivers and mountains, often with tears in their eyes. That is why.

How?

By exploring the past... The task before
us is large. Many years, many miles from Iceland to the Americas, more than 25,000 men, women and children gone...
"farinn"... But Icelanders are fond of record-keeping, and there is a wealth of information to help us find each other again: donated family histories, census records, church records, old photographs sent back to relatives and friends still in Iceland.

By standing in the present... Every year, descendents of the emigrants visit Iceland
to explore their roots - to visit places their grandfathers have talked about. So we are ready to accompany them, help them find the old farms, perhaps meet a few cousins, certainly make new friends.