Alsen Family Name. Can you help ???????????

[Mark Alsen]

I am trying to find any relatives that I may have in Sweden.  My Great Grandfather was Karl August Alsen.  He was born in Hudiksvall Sweden on 7th January 1879.  His parents names were Olof Alsen and Juliana Alsen both Swedish.  We believe he left Sweden when he was very young as my mother says he used to boast about sailing around Cape Horn three times before he was 19 years old.  We think he sailed for a few years before arriving in New Zealand  in the very early 1900's.  He then married in New Zealand to a woman called Jessie and my grandfather Carl Augustus Alsen was born in 1906 and my father Ronald Charles Alsen was born in 1929 and my self in 1962 and now my daughter Tyler in 1997 and my son Brandon in December 2000.   I checked with the Department of Statistics and there are no Alsen's apart from myself and my mother.  My father died in 1994.  I have 5 sisters all married and carrying a married name with myself being the youngest.
 
Can anyone point me in the right direction??

[Ingemar Skarpås]

Hello Mark!
 
I do not know if you have had any other contacts and suggestions made to you directly outside this forum, but if not, maybe this will be some startingpoint.
 
I have a collegue at work that who's name i Ahlzen, and until he worked in the US a few years ago, he spelled it Ahlz?n. I know that his foster father, from which he got the family name comes from Hudiksvall. I also know that that family has quite some history in that area and may have been priests in the churchs around there for a few generations.
 
You may hesitate because of the difference in spelling, but that is not to worry about; It was not uncommon for the upper classes, to which the clerical profession belongs, to have a little more fancy spelling.
 
Since the Hudiksvall parish, and Gävleborgs län (county) is not in the 1890 Census Database, you may need some specialist help from that area, or someone with access to the micro cards, but for start I will talk to my collegue and hear if he recognises any of the names.

[Ingemar Skarpås]

Hello Mark!
 
I confronted my collegue with the data you provided and he immediately had the same thoughts that I had, and thinks there is a high likelyhood you are a relative. He will bring this to his fathers attention ASAP, and we will let you know ...
 
Meanwhile I will do some other statistics research like a database search in the complete Swedish telephone directory to find geographic spread of the name, Book of Dead 1950-1999, et c
 
Regards,
 
Ingemar