This is about three brothers: Søren, Hans and Niels Jensen, sons of Jens Mortensen and Sidsel Jacobsdatter. Hans Jacobsen, our ancestor mentioned in the next paragraph, was the brother of Sidsel.
My great-grandfather, Ole Hansen Jacobson, was a young man of 13 years when he and his mother and sister were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Denmark in October 1866. His father, Hans Jacobsen, who had just died a few months prior, was set against the family joining the church. Shortly after being baptized, the family emigrated to America and settled in Northern Utah, Ole Hansen eventually taking up residence in Oak City, Utah.
Much genealogical research has been done on this family, including communication with researchers in Denmark. In a recent blog post here, I mentioned the first cousin of Ole Hansen Jacobson, Inger Kirstine Jensdatter. I am still researching her family. A few days ago, I thought I would look into her three brothers, Søren, Hans and Niels Jensen. The records show that they lived beyond childhood, but no other information was shown in FamilySearch. These three were first cousins of Ole Hansen Jacobsen whom he probably never really knew. He was born about 25-30 years after them.
This blog is written to show one method that helps in situations like this, particularly for males.
Denmark was very particular and detailed in recording all males in their Military Levying Rolls (MLR). The records available are best in our research for years between about 1790 and 1855. Each parish or village has a record that is kept, updated generally each three years or so, and updated each year with moves or births. With these, most male child can be found and traced through those years. Each location was assigned a number, a lægd number. With the lægd number you can find the specific location and within that place, each boy or man has a number, actually two numbers— one from the previous registry and one (ascending numerically) in the current registry. With that, a person can go from year to year following a boy through his life up until they stop registering him, usually at about 40 years of age.
With the Lægdruller (MLR records) I was able to find these three brothers and trace their movements from place to place. In this case, there was a lot of movement, mostly in the county of Roskilde The mobility explains why previous research did not come up with much. I also learned in this process where Søren and Hans were actually born — in the county of Holbæk, which was not correctly recorded in FamilySearch (until now). I have included the MLR tracing information for each of these boys as documents in their records in FamilySearch if you wish to follow them.
Because of the Military records, I learned that Søren died in a military hospital in Copenhagen at age 23, presumably unmarried at the time. I did find out where Hans and Niels ended up: Hans in Lindby and Niels in Glim, then Gadstrup. In this process I found their marriages and some of their children and families — which are now recorded in FamilySearch. If you wish to see them, the number for Hans is L8RL-QMM, Niels is MYW4-22K. From there you can get to the others.
An interesting side note in all this is the appearance of twins in this family. I know that the Jacobson family has a history of twins being born. Hans Jensen's first children were twins. As mentioned in the earlier post, Inger Kirstine had twin boys who died shortly after childbirth. I am interested to know about other twins being born in this family. We wondered about that happening to us or our children, but so far, no twins have been born.
As another postscript, I was recently invited on FamilySearch to have a picture of my face compared with that of my ancestors to see whom I most closely resembled. It is my grandmother, Sarah Delilah Anderson Jacobson. Others of my Danish ancestors also were close matches. I guess my Danish ancestry shows in my face!
This whole work may not be interesting to many people, but I find it exhilarating when discoveries are made. I am sure I have help from ancestors who are prodding my spirit from the other side of the veil to keep up the work. It is fun. I love to show others how it is done. The door is open for any one of you to join me in this!
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