People

Sometimes I really get curious about my family.

Not from the point of view of trying to meet and connect with my distant relatives. Although those who know me understand my desire to run up and introduce myself to every random person i meet.

OK. That is not true. I tend to be a little more reserved.

What interests me is more the history behind the people. I am not interested in tracking down and talking to my Great-great-great uncle whatshisname twice removed but I do get interested in knowing the history and story behind why he lives in Texas when every other relative of his lives in Ontario. Or who has achieved greatness or if not greatness achieved the life they always wanted.

For nearly my whole life I have know that if I ran into another Ulriksen, I would somehow be related to them. About ten years ago that changed. Suddenly other Ulriksens started appearing that we couldn't find connections with. This shouldn't be surprising given that the root of the name means "Son of Ulrik". Five hundred years ago in northern Europe there were a heck of a lot of people named Ulrik so it is very likely that many unrelated lines of descendants could be referred to as Ulriksens.

Several years ago I did an Internet search and found a few hits on the name. A couple were people I was related too and all the others were in eastern European languages that I couldn't read. Those hits appeared to primarily scientific journals with the name listed as one of the references or contributor to the paper. Nothing that really filled me with any sort of curiosity.

Yesterday I spent some time searching again and found many more occurrences and some were very interesting.

I found a H. Ulriksen listed as the operator of the Southend airport in northern Saskatchewan. That is only about a 9 hour drive form where I live and nobody in my family has any idea who that is.

I found Mark Ulriksen who appears to be a very successful artist. He does private works and illustrates for the New Yorker magazine.

I found a link to the air guitar world championships with a performance by Andre Ulriksen. I have included it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVeEipnuUhI&mode=related&search=

I found Thor A Ulriksen who apparently sells cameras.

I found a picture of a Ulriksen reunion that has 3 people I don't think I am related to http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsepulveda/583203453/ It shows Christian ULRIKSEN RUIZ, Rodrigo SEPULVEDA SCHULZ, Daniel VIÑAR ULRIKSEN .

I found a Karsten Ulriksen who appears to be a fictional character in some sort of game. http://www.hattrick.org/Common/PlayerDetails.asp?playerID=73220838 This one really made me laugh.

Never mind there is also a Fritz Ulriksen in the same league http://www.hattrick.org/common/playerDetails.asp?playerID=30326906

Staale Ulriksen: a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Policy (NUPI).
Vidar Ulriksen: State Secretary Norwegian Labour Party
Stene LC, Ulriksen: one author of an article in a scientific journal "Use of cod liver oil during pregnancy associated with lower risk of Type I diabetes in the offspring." 2000. Diabetologia 43:1093-1098. DOI: 10.1007/s001250051499 PMID 11043854
Daniel Ulriksen: Forward player on a paintball team
Michelle Ulriksen: author of articles relating her horrible experiences in a very fundamentalist religious school as a teen http://www.rationalatheist.com/Articles/Secret_Sabotage_included.html and detailing her opposition to further faith based initiatives by the Bush government. http://www.rationalatheist.com/Articles/faith_initiatives.html
(As an aside, I believe that faith based teaching is a very important part of raising my own kids but I also definitely agree that the type of fundamentalist schooling that she experienced has no place in our society.)

And finally Macarena Ulriksen. A 21 year old blogger from Chile. How did the name get to Chile? All others I found were from Northern Europe or north America and now suddenly there is someone in Chile. I have put a link to her blog on my site please check hers out too.

Interesting. The stories would be endless. Perhaps someday I will know a few of them.