Charles R. "Rus" Magnusson

Charles Ruskin Magnusson was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. All four of his grandparents emigrated from Iceland in the late 1800s. His amma and afi on his mother’s side came from the north and settled in Winnipeg, where his afi worked as a cabinet maker. Both twins themselves, they had ten children, including a pair of twins, one of whom is Rus’ mother. His father’s family emigrated from the Westman Islands, with Rus’ paternal langafi being the first to leave. Though he was a sailor in Iceland, he settled on a prairie homestead near Churchbridge, Saskatchewan after a long and arduous trip to North America. More family members emigrated later, eventually settling in Winnipeg, where Rus’ grandfather was a printer with the Lögberg for many years.

Rus joined a multi-national corporation in Winnipeg and moved around the country several times for work. While working his dream job in the marketing department at the company’s head office in Toronto, he met his wife of 50 years, Doreen. After several more moves with their growing family, mostly throughout Western Canada, Rus and Doreen finally settled in Sherwood Park, Alberta in 1986. They still reside there today, close to their two daughters, three grandsons, two granddaughters, and soon to be two great-grandsons.
Rus began exploring genealogy with two of his cousins in the early days of internet genealogy, as they worked on compiling information on myfamily.com. Their collaborative dive into family history was so exciting that they ended up organizing a Thorbergsson family reunion in Winnipeg in 2003, which was attended by over 150 relatives from across North America. Rus and his cousins have continued to search for family history information, and today, their family trees are almost 90% complete. Rus joined Icelandic Roots in January 2020 and is happy to lend his knowledge and experience to the team of dedicated editors working to make a valuable resource even better.