Lars Mogensen Monsen

Y haplogroup R1b1a2a1a by ISOGG2013 (aka R1b + L11/L52) as per male line descendants

ancestry proven via Y-STR analysis (descended from Titland family in Hamre) see http://blog.kittycooper.com/2013/05/its-a-match-lars-monsens-ancest...

see attached records, confirmed in 1801

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According to Lee Munson's research Lars was a "vector" in Kristiansand, something like a town crier in America, a very respected position. In his wife Anna's death record he is listed a vægter - watchkeeper
http://www.arkivverket.no/URN:kb_read?idx_kildeid=9575&idx_id=9575&...

from a letter by Lawrence Josiah Munson to his son in 1944
http://www.kittymunson.com/Munson/LJM.htm

Your Great-Great-Grandfather LARS MUNSON (spelt formerly Monsen) was born in Bergen, Norway about the year 1790. He moved to Christians Sand (Kristianssand S.) in 1814.

More info here: [http://www.disnorge.no/slektsforum/viewtopic.php?p=541127#541127] and here [http://forum.arkivverket.no/topic/182433-bergen-eidsvaag-farslinjen...]

Birth record in Hamre parish just north of Bergen [http://digitalarkivet.no/cgi-win/webcens.exe?slag=visbase&sidenr=9&...] from Åsane Historical Society: baptized in the parish Hamre 1750-1815 Digital Inn, Digital Archives

Notes from a distant cousin in Norway "By the way, this Lars must have been quite a daring guy. When he married, we were in the midst of the Napoleon war in Europe.

Denmark-Norway, which was a united country those days, took party with the french and Napoleon after the British "flotilla-robbery" in Copenhagen in 1807, and they lost (1812-13).

1807 the Brits forced their way into the harbor in Copenhagen, set the city in fire and captured most of the warships that Denmark-Norway had. After Denmark-Norway joined the war, the Brits put a blockade on the coast line. Denmark was virtually bankrupt after this war, and was forced to give away Norway to Sweden. The Norwegian refused to be handled over to the Swedes as a parcel and claimed independence on 17th of May 1814.

But before that, and especially in 1811, when Lars was married in Farsund people were starving in Norway and smuggling grain to the country was a fearful business. I guess that was what your forefather were up to in 1811, when he was a deck-hand on board a ship with the risk of getting captured and sentenced to imprisonment in England. The price of grain rose so high that you had riots in Bergen. There the Germans (the Hansa confederation) still had a grip on the trade in Bergen, and wealthy people, were rounded up and ordinary people tried to force them to give away grain and and lower the prices. This happened in the streets of Bergen..."