Trying to find history/info about Gram Parish, Haderslev, Denmark
Hello, I have been able to trace my ancestors to the area around Gram Parish, Haderslev, Denmark. Some of the places there that they lived include Gram, Tiset, Skodborg, and Brændstrup. The main line of ancestors that I have been tracing have the last name Brandenhoff/Brandenhof, and the last name seems to appear around the early 1800s.
From doing some research into family names in Denmark, because around that time and earlier a person's "last name" was based on their father, like Hansen or Andresen, a lot of people had similar names, so they would differentiate between themselves using the name of a town/area/farm/etc., so for example, if there were two people named Hans Pedersen and one had a farm named X and the other a farm named Y, they could potentially be called "Hans Pedersen X" and "Hans Pedersen Y", and sometimes those farm names, X and Y, would become the last names for their children.
My family name of Brandenhoff seems like it may have been made in this fashion, as there seems to be a farm called Brandenhoff and a street named Brandenhofvej between Tiset and Gram, closer to Tiset, and can be found on Google Maps. I think that the family name came from this farm because based on someone else's research the Brandenhoff's lived in that area when the last name Brandenhoff appeared, and some of their descendants supposedly live on that farm now. I have tried reaching out to them, but have yet to hear back, so I figured I would try researching the area to learn more about it and possibly see if the name Brandenhof is ever mentioned in any other sources, as I have been able to find a couple of maps that do mention the name Brandenhof near Tiset.
I wanted to check to see if anyone else has read more into the history of areas in Denmark and what sources they have used. I know that for different areas in America, books have been written that describe things like events that happened there, some of the people, and random statistics and info, as well as there being newspapers from the areas that mentioned a lot of random info and events. I don't know when newspapers and books dedicated to specific areas would have been common place in Denmark, so I don't know if any exist far enough back to talk about this area. But I just wanted to check with other people to see if they have done any research into the areas in Denmark, not just their ancestors, and what they read so I can try looking for some info.
Thank you for any info and help.
AustynB