How to start to look back on a record that has 23+ sources for his wife and children but no birth no
Folks:
I've been learning about Swedish records and done a reasonable amount of research there. I'm making the assumption that Danish records are similar (i.e. location/parish is critical to researching a name and family, etc).
Could someone help me understand how to begin sourcing Christen Jorgensen b.1826 (about). Record MV1F-7LX . Look at his file, I see many have added sources (22 so far). I'm not checking all but it is clear he was married in Gamtofte,Odense,Denmark to Ane Kirstine Pedersen (LQ5X-HM1); however, I'm not sure how to trace his actual childhood family nor his birth, since we don't have parents on him. Ultimately, I would like to find where he was born, his mom and dad as well as his death location. Maybe after that I can I can start to confirm all of his children to ensure the attached sources are accurate.
Thx.
TKH
Answers
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I just looked at your person and all 22 sources. Wow what a mess! So the good news is that once you get on the right track it shouldn't be too difficult to identify his birth family, the bad news is you are not to that point yet and much of this information is incorrect.
What appears to have happened is that this Christen has been merged with many people who are in fact not him. This likely happened because Christen has no place names associated with his account, he simply has a name and year of birth. Many people in Scandinavia had the same names all at the same time. Previous researchers appear to have believed that there was only one Christen Jørgensen married to an Anne Kirstine Pedersen having children in Denmark at this time but in reality there were several. Ín this case, I think you have at least three different families one that lived in Ålborg, one that lived in Vejle, and one that lived in Odense. You may actually even have two families from Ålborg for a total of four.
What you need to do is come down a generation or two to where you know your information is solid, start finding your sources there and then move backwards. It is important to always move from the known to the unknown.
Concerning the sources, starting in 1645 Danish priest's were to record the baptisms, marriages, and burials of each person in their parishes but most records do not survive that early. Starting in 1812, two copies of the parish records were to be kept and these were to be stored in separate locations. In the vast majority of cases, at least one of these two copies has survived so by the time you are researching in the 1820's-1860's pretty much every parish has records.
In addition to the parish records Denmark did a fantastic job with their census records. These were done in 1769, 1787, 1801, 1834, 1840, 1845, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890, 1901, 1906, 1911, 1916, 1921, 1925, 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, and 1970. All but the first have survived. All of the census records ask for name, age, and relationship to head of household, and after 1845, they also include the parish of birth.
Other records exist too but in the time period that you are researching, I think you can make a lot of headway by bouncing back and forth between those two sources. Parish and census records can be found on the following websites:
- www.sa.dk (the Danish State National Archives)
- Myheritage
- DanishFamilySearch
- FamilySearch
- www.ddd.dda.dk
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Well done @Tanner Blair Tolman. 😀
@Trevor K Hanson do you descend from one of the children in this family? If so, you should do as Tanner recommends and begin your study from a solid base of information that ties to yourself. We are happy to help sort this out and like Tanners said with the aid of censuses and church records in this time period it won't be too difficult.
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