The Harjo family
From northern Norway to homes across the Atlantic, these are the lives and memories that connect our family. Begin with the people, follow a story, or spend a little time with the photographs and films they left us.
Meet the family
Ludvig and Anna made their home in Masjok, where Hans was born. Their children’s stories lead us to other homes, other countries and the next generation.
Johan Ludvig Harjo
A merchant and father, from Vadsø to the family home at Larsnes.
Read Johan Ludvig Harjo’s story →
Anna Kathrine Børresen
Ludvig’s wife and the mother at the heart of this family.
Read Anna Kathrine Børresen’s story →Their children
Meet Bernhard, Andreas, Signe, Isak, Hans and Karl. Their son Hans Fredrik, born in 1894, was Hans Kristian’s older brother; his later life remains an open question.
Their half-sister, Anna Mathilde Barski, was Anna’s daughter from her later marriage to Petter Barski.
Meet all the brothers and sisters →Hans and Alfhild: the next generation
Stories from our family
42 articles and notices · 1896–2025
Family Lives in the Newspaper
A wedding in Kirkenes, fifty years together in Masjok, and the family at work and at home. Discover more than a century of family stories through the original newspaper clippings, with English translations alongside each one.
Explore the newspaper articles →From the family collection
Photographs, handwritten letters and home movies bring us closer to the people in these stories.
Photo Album of Peter Taavola and Anna Harjo
A family keepsake from Atlantic Mine, Michigan, shared by their granddaughter Jeanie Parker.
Turn the pages of Peter and Anna’s album
Explore 48 family photographs in scan order, presented in the album’s floral design. Compare each scanned portrait with a restored color version, and enlarge the photographs for a closer look.
Our photos
Open a collection or help put a name to a face.
Hans’s photograph collection
Portraits, voyages and family memories.
Browse this collection →
Who are these people?
Help identify three portraits from Gunnar Harjo’s collection.
Browse this collection →
Family Photo Archive
Browse and search photographs from all our family albums and profiles.
Browse this collection →Letters from Hans
Read his own words in surviving letters, with scans, Norwegian transcriptions and English translations.
Open the letters →Our videos
A few favorites from the family film collection.
John & Martha’s 50th wedding anniversary
A celebration of John and Martha’s 50th wedding anniversary, bringing together old home movies and photographs of their wedding, reception, honeymoon and years together.
Watch film →
Tractor races at Uncle Knut’s
A Harjo family party at Uncle Knut’s in 2001, with tractor races out in his field.
Watch film →
Hey Brother — memories through the years
Harjo and Townsend family parties and memories across regular 8mm, VHS, Hi8 and digital video, set to “Hey Brother” by Avicii.
Watch film →Recently added
October 2026
- October 21: Karl Fredrik’s story, family photographs and letters
- October 21: Family Lives in the Newspaper — 42 articles with English translations
- October 19: Andreas’s expanded story and photographs of Ester
- October 19: Anna Barski’s death notice and English translation
- Anna’s life and the story of her parents
- Ludvig’s newspaper notices, with full English translations
- Explore the places in Hans’s life