Read the March TeleNews, and watch this website location, for exciting news about the new "Coming Back Home - Emigrants from Telemark" project in Telemark.
Hermod Monsen is the project manager, and we have heard the exciting news from Dawn Syvertsen, both of Telemark.

Here is what we know so far:
Who are the people in Telemark that are working on this project?
TheTelemark County Council, the Skien municipality (project responsibility) and Hermod Monsen as project manager are working on the project. They have one main contact person from each of the local bodies taking part in the project: Bamble, Bo, Kviteseid, Nome, Notodden, Porsgrunn, Sauherad, Siljan, Tinn, Tokke and Vinje.
What information is important to give to our Telelaget members? What information do they need to include?
At this stage, the pre-study stage, they are mainly interesting in finding how many emigrants left Telemark, from where in Telemark did they come from, and what information do we already have when it comes to lists of names? The information will be included in the final report from the study at the end of March 2003. The estimated number of emigrants from Telemark from 1825 and up to today is 49.000. The emigration from Telemark started much earlier than from most other counties in Norway, and the emigration from Upper Telemark was considerable. Telelaget members are in many ways the customers for the work they are doing. Therefore the Project would very much like to hear the views from Telelaget members what they would like to find on the "Telemark Heritage" pages on the internet. They feel that emigration lists and genealogy-pages are a must, but what about photo-galleries, (old and new photos), - various articles dealing with emigration and life at the farms in Telemark, in English, - local quality products made by craftsmen in Telemark and available on the net sales? And if Telelaget members visit Telemark, what would they like the stay to include?
All genealogical information will of course be of great interest, but so far
Project staff do not have the organization established to receive and handle such
information. Hopefully they will have people available later this year. But they
certainly hope that Telelaget members will continue collecting information about their
roots and information about what happened after the emigrants came to the US
and Canada.
Is there a time frame?
Some preliminary thoughts about what information Telelaget members would like to
find in a "Telemark Heritage" portal would be greatly appreciated. If they receive some information before March 14, they can include it in presentations to the group the following week. The time frame for the pre-study is end of March.
Note:
The above material came from Telelaget correspondence with Mr. Monsen. His request follows:
"Please do not hesitate to ask if you have more questions and/or thoughts about our project."
Regards
Hermod H. Monsen
project manager