Earlier this week my wife and I received an early morning Skype from my daughter who is currently attending a Peace Workshop in Oslo, Norway.

This week she had a break, so she joined a student tour that included the city of Bergen, Norway. As she followed the tour along, they came across an old Castle in which was located The Rosenkrantz Tower. As my wife’s maiden name is Rosencrans she was pretty excited. My daughter knew from my family tree research (which goes back to 1270 A.D.) that Rosenkrantz was the original spelling of my wife’s family name. There were other variations too, including Rosenkrans, Rosecrans, Rosencrantz and many others – but all were part of the same family tree.

My daughter said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were related to the person who built the castle.”

Rosenkrantz Tower
Bergen City Museum Photo

As an amateur genealogist I have researched my wife’s family history and I have documented it through over 20 generations. So when she asked that question, I immediately pulled up a Wikipedia article on the Rosenkrantz Tower and found that it was built for Eric Rosenkrantz in about 1520. I checked my database and found Three Eric Rosenkrantz, one of which lived in Norway at that same time. This Eric Rosenkrantz was also the great great great great grandfather of Harmon Hendrick Rosenkrans, who sailed across the Atlantic in 1650 (30 years after Plymouth Rock) and joined others in establishing New Amsterdam AKA (New York, New York).

So after a little more checking I was able to tell my daughter (with a high degree of certainty) that the Rosenkrantz Tower was indeed built by her 14^th great grandfather.

My daughter’s tour group took a break to do some shopping and she took the opportunity to go back to the Castle to see if she could get a tour. When she told the receptionist that she was a descendant of Eric Rosencrantz, the receptionist was thrilled as this was the first time to her knowledge that a real descendant had visited the Tower and arraigned for her to get a tour of the entire building.

In the thousands of hours that I have devoted to the study of my family tree I have come across many interesting things, but being able to verify that a random sighting of a castle during a European tour was connected by blood to my daughter, gave me the ability to allow my daughter the thrill of a lifetime. For her, History came alive and she was able to enjoy a lesson in her heritage.