Census and Farm Number
chris	On my ancestors census it lists he was in Scheen (Skien), sokn-Gielde Gade, Gard No. 237. Is there any way from this information to figure out the farm name? His last name is Watner and there are farms named Watten, Watne, Vatne and I would like to figure out where the last name originated. Digitalarkivet: 1801-telling for 0806 Scheen. [26945/26] 1535 Anders Watner Husbonde 50 1te gifte Snedker M Thanks for the help.
Borge	From what I can see from the information on the [url="http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/cgi-win/webcens.exe?slag=visbase&filnamn=f10806.wc2&variabel=0&postnr=1535&fulle=true&spraak=n"]Digitalarkivet[/url], he is not living on a farm, but in a house in the village/town of Skien. As he was a carpenter by occupation he was not an ordinary farmer, and the Watner name might actually be a family name, not a farm name in this case. In 1801 there was restrictions on who could work as craftsmen, ordinary farmers who were skilled as craftsmen were not allowed to work as such. There were also guilds. Many craftsmen came from Germany and the other Scandinavian countries to work in Norway, in many cases they kept their surnames names as family names.