Researching Danish records
Censuses and Voter lists · Denmark · Parish Registers

Researching Danish records

loiswillis
On Saturday, I did the post Surname Saturday – Hansen, where I shared what I already had for the Hansen family.  Since I didn’t have the baptism record for Hans Hansen yet, I wanted to review the information I had for Hans, to help me narrow down the search.From family records, I had a possible birth year of 1836, and the birthplace of Lumby, Fyn, Denmark, and that Lumby was five km north of Ostende.  The family record showed that Hans was naturalised on 25 February 1895.  I found his naturalisation papers on the National Archives Australia website, which showed he was fifty eight years old, and his birthplace as Lonbie, county Lown, Denmark.  The naturalisation papers also showed that he had arrived in the colony of Victoria on or about the 14 February 1861, by the ship name unknown, in the ship Sultan from Hamburg and transhipped from Liverpool.  I then searched the immigration records on Ancestry, and found a Hans Hansen had arrived in Melbourne on the 14 February 1859, on the ship “Sultana”.  This Hans was 24 years old.  Although this record showed he was English, the similarity between the name of the ship and the date of arrival indicates this was my Hans.

Fortunately, I had the name of the parish to search in, otherwise finding the right family would have been difficult.  My first stop was the FamilySearch Wiki, to find out the resources that might be available, and I found the main resource was the Arkivalieronline website. Since the records are in Danish, I kept browsing, and found that the Danish Family Search website had transcribed and indexed the Census records into English. Using this, I found a possible household in the parish of Lumby, hundred of Lunde, county of Odense, place name Anderup:

  REC. NO. NAME SEX AGE BORN YEAR MARITAL STATUS INFORMATION
1515 Hans Pedersen Male 50 1795 Married Gaardmand
1516 Anne Marie Pedersdatter Female 25 1820 Married Hans Kone [Hans Pedersen]
1517 Hans Hansen Male 15 1830 Single Barn [Hans Pedersen]
1518 Peder Hansen Male 12 1833 Single Barn [Hans Pedersen]
1519 Mads Hansen Male 7 1838 Single Barn [Hans Pedersen]
1520 Christen Hansen Male 3 1842 Single Barn [Hans Pedersen]
1521 En Datter Female 1 1844 Single Barn [Hans Pedersen]
1522 Niels Jørgensen Male 23 1822 Single Tjenestekarl
1523 Maren Pedersdatter Female 18 1827 Single Tjenestepige

Based on her age, it would appear that Anne Marie Pedersdatter was Hans Pedersen’s second wife.

I then tried the marriage records on the Arkivalieronline website, as these records are easier to read than the baptisms.  The marriage records are organised alphabetically by given name, then surname, and then by year. On page 69 (of 193), I found an entry for Hans Pedersen, age 35, who married Ane Andersdatter on 31/10/1818. There was also a marriage of Hans Pedersen, age 34, to Karen Andersdatter on 14/11/1829.  This second one seemed to be more consistent with what I knew about Hans, and is also more consistent with the later marriage entry of Hans Pedersen, age 48, to Anne Marie Pedersdatter on 27/4/1844.  There is also a notation in these records:

L. L. Karen Andersdatter age 37, on 25/7/1842.

This would appear to be Karen’s death details.

From this, it seems that Hans was born in 1830, not 1836, and that his mother was Karen, not Catherine.  I then started searching the baptism records on the Arkivalieronline website. These are organised in date order, so I started from the marriage in 1829, and found:

Hans Hansen, born 22 Oct 1830, christened 26 Dec 1830, father Hans Pedersen, mother Karen Andersdatter, of Anderup

Next, I went searching for the family on the 1840 Census, this time searching for Karen Andersdatter, and found in Placename Anderup, Parish Lumby, Hundred Lunde, County Odense the following household

REC. NO. NAME SEX AGE BORN YEAR MARITAL STATUS INFORMATION
784 Hans Pedersen Male 44 1796 Married Gaardmand
785 Karen Andersdatter Female 35 1805 Married Kone [Hans Pedersen]
786 Hans Hansen Male 9 1831 Single Barn [Hans Pedersen]
787 Peder Hansen Male 7 1833 Single Barn [Hans Pedersen]
788 Anders Jørgen Hansen Male 4 1836 Single Barn [Hans Pedersen]
789 Mads Hansen Male 1 1839 Single Barn [Hans Pedersen]

I then worked my way through the baptism records, to find the baptism records for the rest of the children in the family.

My next research project will be to try and find baptism records for Hans Pedersen and Karen Anderdatter.

Danish map image from Pixabay