Hi Victoria! I don't doubt you you are right, but I only write what Ulvestad showed. A similar problem is seen in what Ulvestad called Assotin County, but was changed to Asotin in 1883. I guess his sources weren't perfect. We'll make a footnote in our excellent compilation. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~maggiebakke/ulvestad.html Olaf Olaf, it's Whitman County, not Whiteman. The county was named after Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, Presbyterian missionaries who were among the first to cross the Oregon trail. In fact, Marcissa Whitman was one of the first two white women to cross the Rocky Mountains. Marcus and Narcissa set up a mission near what is today the city of Walla Walla. Marcus and Narcissa were murdered by Cayuse Indians in 1847. The Native Americans were suspicious of the Whitmans because the white migration into this part of the west brought along a measles epidemic that decimated the Cayuse, the Nez Perce and the Yakima tribes. My family came to Whitman county from Selbu in 1922, They were the tail end of a long long line of Norwegian immigrants from Selbu to the county, particularly around the small town of LaCrosse. And there still is a Selbu kirke in LaCrosse. And yes, in the immigrant era, the church definitely was Haugean in orientation. The Wigens you mention are cousins. Many of them were wheat farmers there. Whitman County is part of Washington STate's Palouse Country, which has bosomy rolling hills covered with wheat and barley. It's one of the most beautiful landscapes in American, and it's certainly the one I think of every time I sing "golden waves of grain." vs-f .