How do I find two of my gggrandfathers children?

Question

He had four children when he came over from Norway. My family only knows of two. What happened to them? They are on the immagration records. After that they are not in the census records in the US.

Answer 1

try the message boards on ancestry- it goes from country>state> county- and surnames. Post  the name in the title part and details in the body of the post- make sure you check the box that has you notified by e-mail when some activity is on your question.

Answer 2

Did he come to Minnesota, by any chance?

Many of the immigrants took the name of the farm they came from.  Sometimes it took a couple years to figure out what name they wanted to use.

Have you looked in the Minnesota census for that time?

If you post the names here, maybe we can help.

I had trouble finding my Norwegian ancestors, too, but finally did after some searching.

Answer 3

Look in U.S. Census records

After 1850, the US census listed every member of each family by name and age.  If your GG-grandfather was here then you should be able to find him.  You could get a trial membership to ancestry.com and then you will have access to census images.  

If you know where they lived, that will narrow the search. When doing a search for census images, you must remember that the census takers didn't always know how to spell your GGgrandfather's surname and all of your aunts n uncles given names, so trust me THEY WILL BE mis-spelled!  

If you search using the correct spelling, and find nothing, try clicking the "soundex" check box and then the search engine will look under alternate spellings, but you will have a lot more names and places to search through.

Also know that the census from 1890 was lost in a fire so it skips from 1880 to 1900; and that the 1940 census will not be published until 2010, as they are held for 70 years before being released.  

If you can't do the free ancestry trial membership then you can look up the 1880 census on the Mormon site familysearch.org.

Best of luck!