Dear Jenny, You have the best genealogist in Betty Rockswold to help you! I hope you join the Valdres Samband. I have enjoyed my membership for 9 years now. It has been a great help in my genealogy. I have 3 grandparents with ties to the Valdres area so I am always busy with this area. The sites that Janni gave you are great, as it is nice to get an idea of the area. Another site that you can look at is the info online from the Norwegian archives. I looked at the Norwegian 1865 Census at www.hist.uib.no/arkivverket/1865/ (that's 2 V's not a W). It's in Norwegian but don't let that scare you. It's easy to get used to. 1. Click on the Oppland name on the left window (that's the fylke name where Valdres is). 2. Then click on Nordre Aurdal (click on the US flag will give you some of the text in English) 3. Change the DISTRIKNR to GARDSNAVN and then, type in Thon in the next window. 4. Click SEARCH or SOK. You should get a list of 5 farms. 5. Click the number to the left to see the occupants of each farm. Try out different things on this site. There is also some churchbook transcriptions (kirkeboker) and other info at the archives. You will get used to the important genealogy terms like navn, forenavn, gardnavn, dobt, ar (with a circle above the a) etc. I looked at this site and found 5 different farms by the name of Thon in 1865. There were also listed a few other farms like Thon (nordre); Thon nordre; Thon s*; etc. I found Ole Olsons living on only two different farms, the Thon farm in Skrutvold has 2 Ole Olsons; one is 54 and head of household, with a son, Ole Olson age 13. The other farm Thon (nordre) is also in the Skrutvold area and has an Ole Olson age 41 head of household. One of these could be your Ole, but if you knew his age (even approximate age in 1865) this could be a good tool to help search for him. Was your g-grandfather already a family man? Was he a young adventurer? My grandfather came to the US alone at age 16 in 1912 so it is not impossible that the young Ole mentioned above could have travelled by 1868. Also, your Ole Olson from Thon could be living at another farm as a worker or lodger during the 1865 census! Try this site out and play around with it! By the way, my grandfather mentioned above is Ole Gladheim. His great grandparents were Bendix Olson Gladheim and Barbro Thon from Etnedal; we may be related! Good luck! Elaine Homan