“Telesoga is a magazine devoted to the history and reminiscences of Telemarkingar in America.”
An invaluable privilege of membership in Telelaget is receipt of the biannual issues of Telesoga, Telelaget's historical journal. Beginning with its first issue in 1909, the stories and history of our Teler pioneers and their ancestors and descendants are still being published on its pages.
Originally published in Norwegian, the journal began publishing in English in the 1950s. We are pleased to continue the tradition of honoring our ancestors and recording the ongoing history of Telers in America in each issue of Telesoga.
Telesoga
Featured Article
Excerpted from Telesoga Vol 34 Nov 2013
What Routes Did They Use: Part Two
By Elaine Nordlie and Paul Anderson
"We wanted to know the specific routes available for our ancestors to make this incredible journey of several days, and sometimes several weeks. Neither of us had any written accounts from our emigrating ancestors, and our research uncovered only scant information on travel during this time. So, we were left to assemble information from a few resource articles and from resource people in Telemark. "
Submit a Story for the Telesoga
"We want to use the old Telesogas as our model and try to publish and thereby preserve for future generations, more in-depth and historically oriented articles that deal specifically with Telemark, its history, its culture, and its people, both here and in Norway"
Shelley Jerviss
Torkel Oftelie, the co-founder of Telelaget and first editor of Telesoga, traveled throughout the Midwest, documenting the lives of emigrants from Telemark. Most of us with Telemark roots have benefited from his work. Each of his 53 issues included this purpose statement: “Telesoga is a quarterly magazine devoted to the history and reminiscences of Telemarkingar in America.”
N. N. Rønning editing Telesoga in the 1950s expressed the purpose slightly differently: “to furnish its members information about their ancestors in this country and to serve as a bond between all persons with more or less Tele-blood in their veins.”
Today, we have even less “tele-blood in our veins,” and the editor does not travel from place to place collecting stories. Still, in the spirit of Torkel, we are intent on keeping the memory of our Telemark ancestry and heritage alive with submissions from our members. We are especially interested in the stories/history/reminiscences/achievements of the generations that have followed.
We encourage you to submit your Telemark-related story. It can be long or short, funny or sad, and can include photos. Your story might help someone with their genealogy journey or serve as inspiration for someone else's submission.
Technical Specifications:
All document and photo formats are acceptable, the editor with reformat your submission for the journal and a draft will be sent to you before publication for review.
Submission deadlines are March 15 and September 15
Email or USPS
Have a story to tell but aren't confident you have the skills? Send us your rough draft and our competent editing team will refine your writing and prepare it for publication. That's what editors are for!
For more inspiration check out this excerpt from our anniversary book Telelaget: The First One Hundred Years which details the history of the Telesoga.
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