Jens Ellingsen

Jens Ellingsen [great grandfather of Karen Mikkelborg Ellingsen] was bom on 22 December 1722 at Fiskevåg and was confirmed on 4 October 1739 in Saltdal. He moved down to Saltnes in Saltdal where he received ownership rights with a deed dated 20 August 1751. He operated a Jekt and an extensive trade business together with his brother Christopher Elllingsen of Fiskevåg. Jens Ellingsen has been characterized as a family patriarch. Most of the "now living" members of the Nordlands family Ellingsen stem from him. The other brothers' male descendants (with one exception) have long since died out. There are numerous descendants from Jens Ellingsen's male line. Several of Nordlands most competent and most wealthy businessmen have belonged to this line. It has so often been written about this "family patriarch's" sons that a little extra can’t hurt anyone.

Of the family's "dozen," which in several ways was a remarkable flock of children, seven sons and two daughters grew to adulthood. All of the seven sons became known businessmen who operated Jekt’s, and some also became licensed innkeepers and land owners who made a living and commotion in each of their own places: Abel at Sortland, Elling at Rosvik, Johan at Saltnes, Christen at Hustad, Jacob at Skagstad, Christopher at Valberg and Andreas at Skrova. There were stories in Nordland about how all seven brothers came traveling into Bergen harbor with their creaking, loaded boats side by side with their stems aft lined up. In Bergen a battle cry went around "Be ready, for all the Ellingsens are coming!". Jekt usage could hardly have been tied stronger to any place than to the Ellingsen family. As an historian has said, "The entire Nordlands livelihood rises forward for us in the use of Jekt’s". In this family we see exactly this, from the inside. Jens Ellingsen’s two daughters followed in the tradition of their brothers and married businessmen and Jekt skippers,

Jens Ellingsen died at Saltnes on 24 September 1789 and was buried on the 19th, the Sunday after Trinitatis (I8 October) in the same year at Saltdal. He was 67 years old. No estate handling was found after his death.

He was married on 27 October 1751 in Saltdal to Margrethe Elisabeth Mørch who was born on 29 May 1729 in Saltnes. She died on 10 May 1816 in the same place and was buried on the 3rd Sunday after Easter in the same year in Saltdal. (She was the daughter of businessman Abel Abelsen Mørch who was born in 1680 in Bremen, Norway. He lived some years as a merchant in Bergen with citizenship acquired on 2 November 1706, moved after 1721 to Saltnes, where he died on 1 January 1729. The estate settlement began 8 May and ended 25 September 1730. He was married in Kors Church in Bergen on 13 November 1710 to Gjertrud Omsen, who was baptized on 17 May 1694 in the Domkirke in Bergen. They [Jens and Margrethe] had 12 children.