General Notes

Reference: [Sirdal gard og ætt, book 3, pages 591-592 under T. Å. Tonstad.]

Ådne Bjørnsen Nomeland had been married to Astrid Helgesdatter from Moland sub parish in Fyresdal in Telemark. With her he had 2 sons. Ådne is assumed to have been born about 1480, and he probably died about 1560.

This Astrid Helgesdatter was, however, mad, and witnesses could relate that she had already been (mad) as far back as when she was a young girl, but after Ådne had married her "she became completely wild and crazy, ran into the woods and the field; sometimes when she returned home she wanted to set fire to their house and kill her own husband, so he by no means could live in the house with her".

Ådne Bjørnsen later had 6 sons and 2 daughters with his servant girl by the name of Torborg Torulvsdatter. Now it was so at that time that the children born out of wedlock could not be the legal heirs of the parents. When Ådne Bjørnsen was older he therefore petitioned the clergy to be granted a divorce from his first wife and thereto become wed to his servant girl.

This seemed to be somewhat in order as the vicar in Valle, the honorable Jakob Mikkelsen personally had not found anything objectionable with this, and he married them sometime between 1551 and 1557. However, the Vicar had failed to seek the bishop's sanction beforehand. After Ådne's death there were for many years feuding between the children of the 2 marriages regarding the inheritance from Ådne.

As late as in 1596 this was not as yet decided. On 2. December 1593 the son Torkel Ådnesen Tonstad was in Stavanger and lay forth the issue before the Domkapitlet (Chapter house of the Cathedral), and his sister's son, Levor Ulvson was at the same place on 28. February 1596. The Domkapitlet's decision went out at that since the vicar had not had the bishop's sanction to the wedding between Ådne Bjørnsen and Torborg Torulvsdatter, so this marriage could not be regarded as legal, and therefore the children of Ådne and Torborg had the same distinction as being begotten "by whoredom".

Ådne Bjørnsen Nomeland was a very well-to-do man in Setesdal, and he owned land in several farms. Several of his children were prominent people in Sirdal. The reason that Torkel Ådnesen Tonstad and his sister's son brought this issue up in the 1590's was that Ådne's children from the first marriage would not accept the children from the other marriage as legitimately born and therefore refused to let them inherit anything after Ådne died. It seems that the children of the first marriage won the case.

Ådne had in his first marriage the sons Eivind Ådnesen Nomeland in Valle and Bjørn Ådnesen Lunde in Sirdal. With Tora Torulvsdatter he had 6 sons and 2 daughters. Of these children we know of the sons Askild Ådnesen Liland and Torkel Ådnesen Tonstad as well as two sons with the name of Salve and Knut. The last two sons names are not known, and we do not know either the names of the daughters, but one of them must have been married to an Ulv and was the mother to Torkel Ådnesen Tonstads sister's son (nephew) Levor Ulvson who appeared in Stavanger in 1596.

[Sirdal gard og ætt, Book 3, P. 591-592 under Torkel Ådnesen Tonstad]