John Anderson
neil anderson	I am searching on information on my great grandfather. The only information I have is was born about 1858 in Chritiansand and was a mariner. His mother's name was Asper don't know his father's name but he was a farmer. In about 1878 he came to Australia and in 1884 married a Agnes Mary Watson. There was a story he may have changed his name from Andersen . I have found a mariner John Anderson b 1858 in Christiana. This maybe the same but I don't knowif Christiansand and Christiana are the same place. any help in this matter would be appreciated.
Hopkins	Kristiansand is a city/port in Vest-Agder, Norway. Kristiansund is a city/port in Møre og Romsdal, Norway. Kristiania is Oslo. All three of these Kris.... cities are sometimes spelled with CH rather than K. John Anderson will be a very very common name, include the expected spelling variations in Norway and the number is even greater. Ignore the difference between ... son and ...sen, that is too minor a difference to worry about and means exactly the same thing. In most Norwegian records I've come to expect the ...sen spellng - but not always. Standardized spellings really weren't important. I find a married woman in Kristiansand with the given name 'Asper' in the 1865 census (and a few more nearby that city) - http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/cgi-win/webcens.exe?slag=visbase&filnamn=f61001.wc2&gardpostnr=181&sokefelt=skjul
neil anderson	Thnks for this information. Does the census have an English version?
Hopkins	The records in Norway including the census records were taken in Norwegian, of course. There are some online word lists that should help and you might consider buying a good Norwegian-English dictionary for your personal reference library. http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~norway/na17.html http://home.online.no/%7Eotjoerge/files/word.htm Several of the Norwegian websites make an effort to have at least some of the information in English - but never all.
neil anderson	Thankyou for taking the time to help it is appreciated.