Johan Joergen Kristiansen, b. 1848 Chr.sand

Until today, our family had no written record of the names of my maternal grandmother's parents. I have just printed a record from the Norwegian Histroical Data Centre, Information on domicile, from the 1900 census. There I find my mom's "Bestemor and Bestepapa" with real names and dates, and all the children. This is such magic! I had been looking for the name deYong for her Bestepapa, because the family "story" is that his father's last name was supposedly deYong, and he was the first Methodist minister to Oslo/Kristiania, coming from Holland. So now that I have found him (searching for daughter Elfrida Kristiansen) I have been doing earlier census searches for Johan Joergen Kristiansen, my grandmother Eva's father, as he is named in this 1900 census. He is a shoemaker, was born in Chr.sand in 1848, is married to Aase Kristine Kristiansen, also b. 1848 in Chr.sand, and has all 5 children still living at home. I understand that Johan died in a boat of a heart attack in his early fifties. Aase and her two daughters, Elfrida and Eva all came to Boston and settled. The sons, Rolf and Trygve remained in Norway. I am the proud possessor of Eva's zither harp. Such wonderful memories I have of listening to my Nama's angelic voice singing hymns and playing that zither, with Papa playing his mandolin, my mom on piano, and uncles on guitars. She met my Papa, Robert Leonard Parelius of Horten, because she headed a Norwegian String Band at the scandinavian church in Boston. So, reminiscing aside, I am now working to deepen Eva Kristiansen's family line. I'll keep looking for the deYong's, maybe through an entry for Johan J. Kristiansen. Right now I am not finding anything further, perhaps someone more experienced can help. Many thanks, Ellie Hem Hjemmet in the beautiful --and today, snowy-- mountains of east Tennessee