Memorial service for Princess Kristine Bernadotte to take place on 15 November

The memorial service for Princess Kristine Bernadotte, née Rivelsrud, who died on 4 November 2014, will take place at Drottningholm Palace Chapel outside Stockholm on Saturday 15 November 2014. Afterwards she will be laid to rest next to her husband, Prince Carl Bernadotte (1911-2003), at the Royal Cemetery at Haga.

According to the official program published at the Norwegian Royal Court's website, King Harald, Queen Sonja, Crown Princess Haakon, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, Princess Märtha Louise and Ari Behn will attend the memorial service as well as the funeral.

The Swedish Royal House will be represented by King Carl Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel, cf. the Swedish Royal Court's website.

Updated on 14 November 2014 at 08:55 (name mix-up corrected).

Princess Kristine Bernadotte (1932-2014), ancestry

Princess Kristine Bernadotte, née Rivelsrud, b. Eidsfoss, Hof on 22 April 1932, died in her home at Benalmadena, Spain on Tuesday 4 November 2014, cf. the death announcement in Aftenposten 8 November 2014.

Kristine, who was the oldest child of Johan Rivelsrud (1907-1986) and Elna Rivelsrud (1908-1992), was married to Prince Carl Bernadotte, youngest son of Prince Carl and Princess Ingeborg of Sweden, in 1978. Several newspapers mentioned Kristine's death yesterday and today, and Trond Norén Isaksen has written an obituary at his blog.

A memorial service for Princess Kristine took place at the Norwegian Seamen's Church in Calahonda yesterday, while the funeral service will take place at Drottningholm Palace Church, date yet not known. The death announcement can be viewed at Aftenposten's website (search for Bernadotte if you read this after the announcement has disappeared from the front page).

This weekend I have attended the Norwegian Genealogical Society's LAN party for genealogists (research non-stop from Saturday 10 a.m. until Sunday 2 p.m.!) in Oslo, and I have spent most of the time researching Princess Kristine's ancestry for Slektshistoriewiki, the Norwegian genealogy wiki. The ancestry article can be viewed here (in Norwegian, but the genealogical details should be easy to figure out nevertheless).

It should of course be regarded as a prosject "under work", as with all wiki articles. I believe I have (with some help from other researchers) contributed to many new (not yet published) details about Princess Kristine's ancestry, including information about her Swedish ancestry. I hope to get more done later on.

Crown Prince Haakon of Norway in Serbia

Crown Prince Haakon of Norway made an official visit to Serbia today (6 November 2014), where he among others opened a new functionality for Telenor's mobile bank and meet participants of the Telenor Youth Forum as well as Norwegian language students at the Institute of Scandinavian Languages at the University of Belgrade.

According to the Norwegian Royal Court's website, Crown Prince Haakon later met up with the First Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ivica Dačić, followed by an official luncheon.

The Crown Prince also attended the opening of Human Rights House Belgrade, which will be home to various Serbian human rights organisations, before he moved on to the Zemun district where he attended the re-opening of the Roman Catholic chapel of St. Rocco, which during the last few years has undergone extensive renovation works. He also visited the Serbian Orthodox Church of the Holy Archangel Gabriel nearby.

In Zemun Crown Prince Haakon had the pleasure of meeting his distant royal relative, Crown Prince Alexander, head of the former royal family of Yugoslavia (Royal House of Karadjordjevic), and his wife Crown Princess Katherine. The Norwegian Royal Court doesn't mention this encounter, but fortunately Crown Prince Alexander's office has released the following information:

Their Royal Highnesses Crown Prince Hakon Magnusson [sic!] of Norway, Crown Prince Alexander and Crown Princess Katherine visited Zemun today to attend a ceremony at the Roman Catholic Church of St. Rocco, following that they visited the Serbian Orthodox Church of the Holy Archangel Gabriel. This ceremony was also attended by State Secretary Dilek Ayhan of the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, HE Mr Nils Ragnar Kamswag, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway, and great number of members of the diplomatic corps and religious representatives.

The Roman Catholic Church of St. Rocco was built in 1836, on the foundations of an older chapel, and the architect was Joseph Felber, who also built the Zemun Church of Holy Trinity. The church suffered in 1990’s, but recently it was renovated thanks to the Norwegian Government and its former glory has again been fully restored.

Crown Prince Alexander expressed his delight that HRH Crown Prince Haakon is in Serbia and that they met on such wonderful occasion. “Crown Prince Haakon of Norway is the first member of the Norwegian Royal Family to visit Serbia for 40 years. I hope meetings like this will happen more often and that each future meeting will further deepen the friendship between our two countries to the benefit of both our nations.”

Crown Prince Haakon, Crown Prince Alexander and Crown Princess Katherine also visited the Serbian Orthodox Church of the Holy Archangel Gabriel in Zemun and talked to the priests who told Their Royal Highnesses about its long history.

Crown Prince Alexander's office has also published a few photos from the visit. Later in the evening the Norwegian Crown Prince attended an official dinner hosted by the Norwegian Ambassador in Belgrade, Nils Ragnar Kamsvåg. According to the Norwegian Royal Court, the "guest list reflects the extensive cooperation between Norway and Serbia in various spheres of society". Not sure if the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Serbia were invited, but I really hope so.

The Crown Prince of Norway's given names are Haakon Magnus, but only the first name Haakon is in daily use, which was confirmed after the extraordinary council of state on 23 July 1973, three days after his birth.

Prince Michael of Greece's new website

A corredondent has made me aware of the author Prince Michael of Greece's new website, http://www.princemichaelofgreece.com/. Besides a biography and a list of his published works, you will also find many nice and interesting photos.

Prince Michael, b. 1939, is the son of Prince Christopher of Greece and his second wife Françoise, née Princess d'Orleans. Prince Michael was married to Marina Karella in 1965 and has two daughters, Alexandra and Olga, as well as 5 grandchildren. Prince Michael is a first cousin to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh as well as a first cousin once removed to the head of the Greek royal family, the former King Constantine II of the Hellenes.

Nye utgaver av NST og Genealogen (new issues of NST and Genealogen)

Norsk Slektshistorisk Tidsskrift og Genealogen, som utgis av Norsk Slektshistorisk Forening, har nettopp kommet ut med nye utgaver (NST bind 44, hefte 1-2 og Genealogen 2/2014). Dere kan lese nærmere om innholdet på NSFs nettside.

Denne gangen har jeg bidratt med to artikler. Først en bokanmeldelse/bokpresentasjon (kall det hva man vil) av en bok fra 2012 om Uelandslekta fra Varhaug, Jæren: Ueland, Tarald. Du skal ikkje forfedrane gløyma. Uelandslekta. Etter Ingeborg Ivarsdatter f. 1850 & Tobias Tollaksen Ueland f. 1831. 1870-2012, Ueland Historiske Forlag, Bergen 2012. ISBN: 978-82-999021-0-6).

Det andre bidraget er en kort notis kalt Ny dødsdato for professor Oluf Rygh, der jeg påpeker at dødsdatoen oppgitt i oppslagsverk som Norsk Biografisk Leksikon er feil - Rygh døde den 20. august 1899, som primærkildene kan bekrefte, og ikke 19. august. Ikke den mest banebrytende avsløringen, men viktig nok. Datoer skal man holde i orden.

Summary in English: The last issues of Norsk Slektshistorisk Tidsskrift (Journal of Norwegian Genealogy) and Genealogen (The Genealogist), which are published by Norsk Slektshistorisk Forening (The Norwegian Genealogical Society), have just been posted to the members and subscribers. Information about the conents can be found at the official website. I have this time made two contributions. First a book review/presentation of a book from 2012 about the Ueland family from Varhaug, Jæren: Ueland, Tarald. Du skal ikkje forfedrane gløyma. Uelandslekta. Etter Ingeborg Ivarsdatter f. 1850 & Tobias Tollaksen Ueland f. 1831. 1870-2012, Ueland Historiske Forlag, Bergen 2012. ISBN: 978-82-999021-0-6).

The second contribution is a short article named Ny dødsdato for professor Oluf Rygh ("New death date for Professor Oluf Rygh") where I point out that the death date stated in encyclopedias like Norsk Biografisk Leksikon ("Norwegian Biographical Enclyclopedia") is wrong - Rygh died on the 20th of August 1899, as the primary sources can confirm, and not the 19th of August. Certainly not the most groundbreaking discovery, but important enough. One should be as thorough as possible about dates, and always back them up with primary sources. Oluf Rygh was a Norwegian historian, name researcher and archaeologist and among Norwegian genealogists known for initiating and writing the first two volumes of the series Norske Gaardnavne ("Norwegian Farm Names").