Farms: Laga-Kotey,[3] Fjosaket,[2] Underhraun[4], Botnar are all located in the Medalland[5] region, Langholt Parish of Iceland. Eystri-Dalbaer[6] is located in the Landbrot region, Kirkjubaejarklaustur Parish [1]. Farm locations are not to scale, in order to give a perspective of distance, we do know that the Laga-Kotey farm and the Botnar farm are 9.3 miles apart.

1 - In 1859 the Kirkjabaejarklaustur Parish Church was moved to Prestabakki and is now the Prestabakki Parish.
2 - Maps location show Laga-Kotey and Fjosaket as adjoining farms, with the Latitude 63.6500 and Longitude -18.1833 as the same for both farms.
3 - Various records list the Laga-Kotey farm as Kotey and the 1880 Iceland Census has it listed as Lagakotsey. We know they are all one and the same farm because they are all listed in the Langholt Parish of the Medalland region. I have found no indication that there are three farms in Medalland with these names. The Iceland 1816 cencus supports this also.
4 - Nearby (1.1 miles) Underhraun is the ruin Gamla-Underhraun, translated Old-Underhraun. This begs the question, was it the Old-Underhraun Ruin or current Underhraun mentioned in the records of this family?
5 - Some family records submitted to the source of this record list Medalland as Medallandssandur. This is in error as Medallandssandur translated is Medalland Sand Area, older maps and some current show this sand area located south of the Medalland Region between it and the ocean.
6 - Eystri-Dalbaer is sometimes refered to as Uppsalir in contemporay accounts. Uppsalir is actually Old Eystri-Dalbaer. Some contemporay accounts refer to Uppsalir as a ruin and/or a farm, as if their is both a ruin and a farm house at the same location. Most accounts, however, list this farm as Eystri-Dalbaer with the footnote "commonly known as Uppsalir".

When Eirik and Gudrun's youngest son Einar wrote his life history he told us:

We can see from the childrens records that there were fourteen children including Einar. If we assume that Helga of 1838 was stillborn, this would match Einar's statement that there were thirteen children.

Eirik worked as a carpenter on the farms in the Medalland Region, starting his family on the Fjosakot farm where his first child was born in 1825. Then sometime between February 1832 and November 1832 he moved his family to the Undirhraun farm, moving to the Laga-Kotey farm by July 1840 where he passed away June 9, 1951. leaving his wife (50) and seven children still living; Einar (3), Kristin (8), Vigfus (7), Runolf (21), Thurid (22), Helga (11), Saemund (26). Runolf, Thurid, Helga and Saemund where most likely on there own at Eirik's death and about this same time Einar moved in with his foster parents. This would leave Kristin and Vigfus still in their mothers care. We know not how Gudrun supported herself, Kristin and Vigfus, providing Kristin and Vigfus continued to live with their mother and was not fostered out like Einar was. Gudrun moved in with her son Einar and wife Gudrun in 1869 - 1870 where he had bought a home in Vestmannaeyjar. She lived in Vestmannaeyjar until her death February 18, 1888.[*1] [Kristin and Vigfus, like Einar, emigrated to Spanish Fork, Utah. This indacates to me that Kristin and Vigfus continued living with their mother where Einar would have more contact with them as he visited his mother, given he converted them to the Morman religion. None of the other children were converted to Mormanism.]

Eirik and Gudrun lived their lives during a period of time when Iceland was recovering from one of the most devestating event in Icelands history. Eirik was born just 15 years after the eruption of the 1783 Laki Volcano, Gudrun 18 years after the eruption. Both Eirik and Gudrun's parents, as young children, lived through this Volcano. Ebenezer Henderson's account of the Laki Volcano states:
"In a word, the accumulation of miseries, originating in the volcanic eruption, was so dreadful, that, in the short space of two years, not fewer than 9,336 human beings, 28,000 horses, 11,461 head of cattle, and 190,488 sheep perished on the island!
Eirik and Gudrun's world was the result of these natural catastrophes and a fight against the repression of the Icelandic people by a Danish King who controled Iceland at the time, and Icelands' fight for independance.

A more detailed account of the Laki eruption is given with Eirik's parents page, here is included information related to this history. E. Henderson tells us that the Botnar farm was "burnt up" and from his account we can conclude that the lava flow stoped somewhere between Botnar and Undirhraun, a distance of 4.8 miles or it bypassed Undirhraun and Laga-Kotey. We know from the account of William Jackson Hooker that there was smoke still rising from the lava beds in 1809, some 26 years after the eruption. He tells us in his book, Journal of a tour in Iceland, in the summer of 1809, Volume 2:

Smoke still visable July 26, 1809
When in company with Mr. Levetzen and others, I performed a journey on the 26th of July, from Mörk to Siden, we turned off to go to Skalarfall, a spot which afforded us a prospect equally pleasant and extraordinary; for we stood here upon the top of a very high mountain, which on the south side was entirely covered with grass. Here and there among the rocks some remains of the farm-house and church of Skal were still visible. From this place, which commands a very extensive view, we could see the whole mass of lave stretching over Siden and the Medalland, and also a part of the western branch towards Skaptartunga. So extensive was the portion of lava towards the south, that the eye could not distinguish its boundary from that of the superincumbent clouds, in which its utmost extremity appeared to lose itself. As to the lava, it was every where of a coal-black hue. In its progress along the channel of the Skaptaa, as well as along several of its arms and auxiliary streams, it had formed itself into a number of lofty hills, running in a direction from east to west, and appearing from our elevated situation like a flight of steps. From each of these currents were rising in greater or less number, columns of smoke of different degrees of density, which appeared where we were standing to reach even to the clouds, exhibiting thousands of fantastic shapes.

Mr. W.J. Hooker continues, with respect to Eystri-Dalbaer and Botnar:
And it is also a subject of rejoicing that, instead of eighty-nine farm-fouses which he informs us are all damaged, and the greater part of them destroyed by fire and by large pumice-stones, neither Mr. Livetzen, nor myself, could in the course of our journey (which extended to every farm in the way of being injured by the eruption) discover more than eight farmers'-houses, and two cottages, which can never be inhabited: these are, Eystridalur, Thverardalur, Aa, Nes, Hölmasel, Holmar, Efri-Fliotar, and Sydri-Fliotar. To these, however, which are totally uninhabitable, ought, perhaps, to be added the estate of Eystri-Dalbær, in Landbrot; for this farm which has always been subject to annual damages, by drifted sand from the districts to the eastward of it, is now, by reason of the disappearance of the waters of the Skaptaa, that formerly swallowed up a great portion of the sand, totally destroyed. Yet it has not received any damage immediately from the fire. Exclusive of the two cottages, called Kalfafellskot and Blomsturvellir, there are in all, twenty-nine farm-houses which the fire has more or less damaged, yet not to that degree, but they may in course of time again be tenanted. Of these there are at present fifteen lying desolate, Hvammur, Svinadalur, Eystri-Asar, Botnar, Hnausar, Dalbær, Hollt, Skal, Selialand, Thvera, Nupar, Kalfafell, Mariubacki, Hvoll, and Skaptardalur. The great distance from the coast and the difficulty of approaching it, will, however, probably be insuperable objections to the last of these places again becoming inhabited.

[1] - We know that the Botnar farm was tenanted in 1801 when Gudrun was born here.

Protection from the drifting sand is lost:
It has been already remaked that some branches of the Skaptaa [river], which formerly flowed through Landbrotet, as Gloppulælit, Vordulækur and Tungulækur, have, together with the parent fountain, been dried up. This district [Landbrot] has not indeed sustained any great injury from the fire immediately; yet, nevertheless, since the disapperarance of the Skaptaa, it is exposed to the continual droughts, and may possibly in the course of time be totally destroyed by the flying sands from the eastern country. It is true it has always been subject to such disasters, but it had constantly in former cases great protection in the Skaptaa, which, by swallowing up the sand, prevented it from driving over to the western side, at least, in such a quantity as to effect any material damage. Now, on the contrary, most of the farms in this district [Landbrot] are in the greatest danger; and so imminent is the peril to which Kirkebai-cloister is stated to have been exposed, even during the last year, from the drift-sand, that in case of its being annually revisited by similar mis-fortunes, it will in course of a very short period become uninhabitable. When I travelled through this district, in the month of July last, the grass, in a great part of the enclosed pastures, was covered with sand, and large heaps of drifted sand lay between the houses, as well as scattered over the adjacent country.

These accounts give us, at least in part, a perspective of life within the homeland of Eirik and Gudrun's family.

Pictures related to this record:   Botnar       Botnar 2       Kirkjubaejarklaus      

FOOTNOTES:
[*1] - At some point Gudrun's son Vigfus moved to Vestmannaejar (Westman Island) and was still living there June 8, 1886 when he was baptized by his brother Einar. It would be logical to assume that Vigfus supported his mother from the time Einar emigrated to Utah until her death in 1888. By 1885 Gudrun had been blind for some time.

Changes Made From The Source Record
[*2] - Married:   Changed "Austurskaftafell" to Vestur-Skaftafells. Medalland is located in the county of Vestur-Skaftafells (West-Skaftafells) county, not Austurskaftafell (East-Skaftafells) county.

The 1816 Iceland census has Eirik's age as 16. This would mean he was born in 1800 not 1798.

[*3] - Born:   Removed "Medallandsthingi". Botnar is located in the Medalland Region, Langholt Parish. Various pedigree charts refer to the Medalland Region as, Medalland, Medallandsthingi, and Medallandssandur interchangeably. Some of which place these names as if they are Parishes, which is in error as none are listed in the list of Parishes in Iceland. If you want to include the Parish of a location in Iceland, the correct way is: Botnar, Langholt, Vestur-Skaftafells, Iceland. Botnar is the farm (city, town), Langholt is the parish, Vestur-Skaftafells is the county, Iceland.