Icelandic family history

From my sister, Johanna McCloy:

I’m corresponding with our cousin Jennifer (Kelly* and Eulah’s daughter) and she told me she went to Iceland to visit the family homestead last year. I asked her to share info and photos, and she’s beginning to send me images and maps and history from what she knows. I am loving it!  I thought you would, too. I’ll summarize many emails and info into as tight a message as I can:

*Kelly is my mother's older brother and was one of her best friends ever.  Eulah is the wife my mother loved too.

My mother Lillian Thorbjorg McCloy's grandfather Sveinn Kristjanson was born 9/18/1836. This is where we’re from originally in Iceland, excerpted from one of Jennifer’s emails:

Our family homestead is called Bjarnastadir and if you look at Iceland you'll see Akureyi (second largest city after Reykjavik) in the north & the homestead is a little to the east and south of it.

Look up Bjanastadir, Iceland on Google. Either images or maps. It’s gorgeous! Reminds me of photos of Ireland* The attached two photos were taken on our family homestead by Jennifer. (The woman in photo #2 is her daughter). She wrote this about them:

[*where our paternal grandfather is from!]

That house is on our homestead along with the turf house.

Sveinn moved from Iceland to a small farm 3 miles south of the small town of Gimli, Manitoba in 1883, so… when he was 47 years old. Gimli was called “Small Iceland” due to the large block of Icelandic settlers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Municipality_of_Gimli
The farm was near what was then called Willow River and a short distance to the main road. They farmed there for 20 years  (not sure what they farmed) and then moved to Sask, close to  Wynyard, Saskatchewan. I looked it up. Another Icelandic settlement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynyard,_Saskatchewan

His son, our grandfather Thorkell, was a child from Sveinn's second marriage. (Who knew? Sveinn had two children with wife #1. No elaboration or info on what happened to her… or when he married each wife.)

Thorkell was one of seven or eight kids with wife #2, Veronika Ragnkedur Thorkelsdottir (her brother was a Minister at the Lutheran Cathedral in Reykjavik).  Thorkell's wife, our grandmother, was Johanna Eggertsdottir Sigurdson from Selkirk.

Sveinn died on 7/4/1918, so almost eight years before Mama was born. So he lived to be 82.

That’s the nutshell.

Isn’t this great??