Isn't genealogy fun?
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 8:17 pm
Rather than get a load of blank looks, I thourght I share this with a few like minded individuals! (Yes I do mean you lot!!)
I've been digging in my husbands family, and found out some things that they don't know.
We new that his grandfather Thorvald (Danish name!) was orphaned as a child - his father died when he was six months old. His mother remarried, and the story goes she died in childbirth shortly after. There was supposed to be a sister who survived. I'd not found a record of his mother's death. My husband's grandfather then lived in many places, and attended many schools - it was thought he was fostered out of the family.
I've just found out that she died 10 years after the marriage, and after the birth of six more children! Luckily it seems that Thorvald continued living with his mother through this period - they appear on a census. He lived with his grandmother after his mother's death.
The reason that I'm all excited is that Thorvald's stepfather moved the family around every few years, and while the Danish census and parish records are very good, there is no database to search - so it meant trawling through the records one by one until I happened to stumble on the correct one! What is also interesting is that Thorvald's stepfather was a mormon, so none of the children were christened in the Danish lutheren church - although all are recorded in the parish records! To find Thorvald's mother's death I had to start searching through the parish records for a whole county - with about 50 different parishes - luckily I only needed to look as far as "H".
Thorvald's stepfather remarried nearly 16 years after the death of Thorvald's mother. The woman he married, by that time had already given him seven children! Of which only one was baptised (not sure why!). They still moved around the area every few years, possibly due to being umemployed (they sertainly recieved financial help from the parish). Of thirteen children, there were nine different places of birth! Needless to say I've only found three census records (they were held every 5 years) of the six available.
I can't wait to tell my mother in law what I've found out!
I've been digging in my husbands family, and found out some things that they don't know.
We new that his grandfather Thorvald (Danish name!) was orphaned as a child - his father died when he was six months old. His mother remarried, and the story goes she died in childbirth shortly after. There was supposed to be a sister who survived. I'd not found a record of his mother's death. My husband's grandfather then lived in many places, and attended many schools - it was thought he was fostered out of the family.
I've just found out that she died 10 years after the marriage, and after the birth of six more children! Luckily it seems that Thorvald continued living with his mother through this period - they appear on a census. He lived with his grandmother after his mother's death.
The reason that I'm all excited is that Thorvald's stepfather moved the family around every few years, and while the Danish census and parish records are very good, there is no database to search - so it meant trawling through the records one by one until I happened to stumble on the correct one! What is also interesting is that Thorvald's stepfather was a mormon, so none of the children were christened in the Danish lutheren church - although all are recorded in the parish records! To find Thorvald's mother's death I had to start searching through the parish records for a whole county - with about 50 different parishes - luckily I only needed to look as far as "H".
Thorvald's stepfather remarried nearly 16 years after the death of Thorvald's mother. The woman he married, by that time had already given him seven children! Of which only one was baptised (not sure why!). They still moved around the area every few years, possibly due to being umemployed (they sertainly recieved financial help from the parish). Of thirteen children, there were nine different places of birth! Needless to say I've only found three census records (they were held every 5 years) of the six available.
I can't wait to tell my mother in law what I've found out!
