About Us

Holtan Heritage is a project to share and preserve the stories of several related families who emigrated from Norway in the 1850’s, 60’s, and 70’s to a series of upper Midwestern places that opened up for settlement in those years.  The first came to Wisconsin, later to Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, and now, to the whole world. They came from rural valleys in just a few fylkes or counties in Norway, but mostly from Upper Telemark.

Phil Holtan from Eagan, MN, has taken the lead in the project, but he has wonderful collaborators, especially Kathy Holtan Wilner, from Bowdon, North Dakota and Audrey Olmstead, from Forest City, Iowa. Michael Holtan of Chicago, IL, is the webmaster for the project and greatly helped the initial setup. We thank many others who have helped us, providing stories, photos and other family information.

We are also pursuing an ambitious parallel project, to gather information on all the descendants of Hans Halvorson Holtan and Margit Tarjeisdatter Nordgarden Holtan, of her sister, Sigri Tarjeisdatter Nordgarden Tveitane, and of Hans’ nephew, Halvor Bjornson Lovik. The Ancestry title for that project is Holtan Tweeten Kingland.

The descendants family tree project is directed by Gerald Holtan of Ames, Iowa.  Phil has been working on a larger tree, mainly of ancestors, that he inherited from his mother, Ruth Tweeten Holtan, who worked for 40 years, pre-computer, to search out and record her family tree and her stories. This project is both inspired by her and built on the foundation of her work.  That larger tree is Holtan Suby Tweeten Dahlby, named for the 4 main family lines that flow into our family, but there are many more whose stories are collected here. I have worked hard to make it accurate, but as our associate, Kathy Holtan Wilner says, she is more of a family historian than a genealogist.  That makes sense. Accuracy and evidence are important, but they are not our only goals.

Finally, we are planning a big reunion in July of 2026, and as I have learned about reunions, everyone tries to get their family tree information in shape for the gathering, and that’s just what we’re doing. See the section about the Holtan Reunion 2026 for more information and to see how to be involved.