Swedish emigration--through Norway!

My ancestors came from Varmland, Sweden, a Swedish county or lan that is on the western side of Sweden, bordering Norway.  I always figured that they emigrated through a Swedish port like Goteborg or Stockholm.

I don't know why I never thought of this before, but suddenly I thought, "what if they emigrated through Oslo?  Oslo is actually closer to Varmland than Stockholm.

Norway, as you may know, has terrific records, including free access to its 1865 and 1875 censuses, and also emigration records at http://arkivverket.no/Digitalarkivet.  From this link, I clicked on "emigranter" and "vise alle 98" (look at all 98 links).  From here, I searched both "emigrants from Oslo" and "emigrants from Kristiana" databases for 1868.  I was able to plug in my ancestor's name "Jan" and came up with a father and two sons who left Oslo on May 26, 1868.

So far so good, but where were his wife and other children?  I tried plugging in various combinations of names and dates, including various patronymic combinations, but the program did not seem to be able to accept the slashed O in Ostmark.  Fortunately, it was able to accept "contains stmark" and I found them!  It turns out that the wife, Kari, left Oslo about one month later, on July 4, with 6 more children.

So now I know not only that they left from Oslo, but the husband and the wife traveled separately with some of their kids, the name of the feeder ship, and that they were on their way to Quebec, and ultimately, the United States.  Lots of information simply as a result of thinking through things a different way.