Hvidsten Family History
Index of all sites relating to this family and related families.
The name Hvidsten, when translated from Norweigan, means "white stone".   The Hvidsten families who settled first in Marshall County, MN and then later scattered to also live in Arizona, California, North Dakota, Canada, and other areas of MN, came from an area of Norway near Oslo and Drammen, near a village by the name of Hvisten which still exists today and can be found on many of the more detailed maps of Norway.  Many generations ago, my family bought a farm in Norway which was named Hvidsten, and so they took that name as their surname.  Previously, the family held the surname of Fossen, because they had owned the Fossen farm,  This was a common way of determining surnames in Norway at that time. 

Six brothers and one sister immigrated to Minnesota from Norway in 1884.  They were the children of Amund Olsen Hvidsten/Widsten and his wife Kari Pedersdatter Myhre, who died a week apart, two years before their children left Norway.  I was able to find them in the 1865 Norwegian census (online through the Digitalarkivet) living at the following place: Widsten Gardsnavn, Eker Prestegjeld, Houg Sogn, Warlo Skoledistrikt, Buskerud.  The farm, spelled "Widsten" in the 1865 census, was in some years and records spelled "Hvidsten".

The children who immigrated to North America were: Petra (married Anton Lee), Olaf, Carl(Karl), George, Hans Peter, John, and Martin.

George, John, and Martin took the spelling of "Widsten".  The brothers Olaf, Carl, and Hans spelled their surname "Hvidsten".
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