Near Copenhagen, the land of Maren Hansen Jacobson and family

My great-great-grandmother, Maren Hansen Jacobson lived in Høje Taastrup, near Copenhagen, Denmark when she heard the Gospel message and desired to be baptized, eventually joining the Church in 1866. Her husband refused to allow her to be baptized and then he suddenly died. She was baptized a few months after his death and soon afterwards left with her daughter and son (Ole Hansen Jacobson) to travel to Utah.

In our recent trip to Europe, we visited some of the places where she and her ancestors lived.


Hans Jørgensen, the father of Maren, was born and lived in Ballerup, specifically in Pederstrup, part of Ballerup. We found the Ballerup Museum and Pederstrupgaard, or Pederstrup gardens.


This place showed many of the thatched roof style homes found in Denmark.


This family's records were found in the church at Smørum, not far away. At present, the church is in the village of Smørumovre.


The grandmother of Maren Hansen was Kirsten Gregoriusen. I recently found the records of her family in Smørum, including her twin brother, Simon and was privileged to seal him to his parents. I believe there are more family members that can be found in this area. Originally the research was focused on Ballerup, but those records do not go back far enough, but they are found in Smørum. As seen on the front of this church, it existed at least as far back as 1636. Kirsten and her twin brother Simon were christened on 10 Nov 1749. It is very likely that this is the very church where they were christened.

Though this is not one of our family (at least I don't know that it is connected to us), we photographed this stone to show that the name is not really unusual here.

Next we went on to look for Høje Taastrup. Høje is the word for "higher" or "upper." Based on a sign we saw at that church, it appears that Taastrup was originally called Thorstrup (see my blog entry for our general travels in Denmark).


Ole Hansen Jacobson was born in Klovtofte, a small place part of Høje Taastrup. Our maps showed that it was close by, but we were not able to find anything by that name, but did find this sign very close to the church (Tofte way):


Maren's mother-in-law, Hans Jakobsen's mother (Ane or Kirsten Hansen) was born in Kraghave, as were her parents and family. We found that name on the signs in the close vicinity as well.


Hans Jakobsen's father, Jacob Olsen was from Torslunde:


Some more of Hans Jakobsen's ancestors (his mother's line) came from Kildebronde and specifically Hundige. We foud a place named Kildebronde, the building across the church with that name on it (in the prominent yellow color found on many of the buildings in Denmark) and the church across the street was named Hundige.


It is interesting to see these charming small villages and their prominent churches, all not too far away from that powerful and large city of Copenhagen. It is an honor to be able to see where Ole Hansen Jacobson and his ancestors lived.