Vangsness Genealogy and Vangsness Family History Information

Vangsnes is the name of a farm and an area/village in Vik, Sogn og Fjordane county in Western Norway. The original farm was big and has been split many times, so that it consisted of over 20 different, small farms in the 1800s. There were thus many different families connected to that farm.

The name Vangsnes as last name can be used by any family who were living at Vangsnes around 1850-1923, when the Norwegian Names Act was passed (1923) requiring all Norwegians to adopt a set family name. Before that the Scandinavian naming practice of patronymics and farm names (address) was used, even if people moving into the few towns typically started to use a family name from the mid-1800s onwards. Norwegians who emigrated also started using their patronymic or farm name as set family name.

In the various original sources it can be found as Wangsnes, Wangsnæs, Vangsnæs, Vangsnes.

• 1900 census: Vangsnæs
• 1865 census: parish Vangsnes, farm Vangsnæs
• 1801 census: Wangsness

Use as Last name today

- from the Norwegian Statistics bureau http://www.ssb.no:

• Det er 426 som har Vangsnes som etternavn
• Det er 13 som har Wangsnes som etternavn
• Det er 4 som har Wangsness som etternavn

Famous people

- using the Vangsnes name today or having a Vangsnes ancestor:

• Walter Mondale
• Kirsten Simone Vangsness, actress

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Vangsness