Dealing With Danish Common Names - the Tale of Two Anders Hansens ( or 3 or 4 or ...)

An Instructive Tale - Be Careful in Making Connections

One day last week I was reviewing the family of a first cousin of one of my ancestors. As I studied the youngest son, Anders Hansen, I searched to see whether I could find a wife for him in the Danish records (Danish State Archives). I found a marriage for him. I verified it because the record of marriage contained some very valuable information. It said that his mother was Hans Albrecht(sen)'s widow and said he was from Hundie (which was a small community in the parish of Kildebrønde, Roskilde, near Copenhagen, Denmark).

In looking for his records in the parish, I found that there were two Anders Hansens born within less that two years of each other in Hundie, one born 27 August 1831 and one born 27 May 1833 (my relative).

The marriage record gives the name of his wife as Maren Pedersdatter. I searched out her records and found her birth, in Kildebrønde, on 23 August 1831.

As I worked to attach her record to Anders in FamilySearch as his wife, I learned that she was already attached as the wife of another Anders Hansen. This other Anders Hansen was the one born in 1831, son of Hans Christoffersen. Seeing the father's name of listed in the marriage record, I knew that they had the wrong Anders Hansen attached.

The Confusion Gets Even Thicker

As I looked at the children listed for this couple, it became obvious that connections had been made that were not correct. The number of children was large, 14, which of itself was not that strange, but there were children with birth dates that were physically impossible, e.g. a son Christen, born August 1865 followed by a son, Hans born March 1866, then the next child, Niels born June 1866. Each of these three were born in the same general area, but in different places and parishes.

If you find multiple children born in a family and some of them are born in different places, that should be a warning that something might be wrong. Because of this, I decided to study each of these children to find some answers. 

Long Story Short...

The results of my studies revealed two more Anders Hansens — each of which were married to a woman named Maren, one Maren Pedersdatter and the other Maren Larsdatter. One of these was in the community of Snoldelev and one in Himmelev, both places not far from Kildebrønde parish where my relative lived. It was obvious by the children's records and the marriage records of these other sets of parents (found in subsequent research) that these were the parents of these other children.

I reconnected these "errant" children to their correct parents and removed their connection to my Anders Hansen's family.

In the end, my Anders Hansen and Maren Pedersdatter had six children, the last of whom was born only about 4 months before the death of Anders Hansen.

Two Other Loose Fibers

1. There was a marriage record attached to Maren Pedersen for a marriage to an Anders Hansen, but this one took place a few years before their actual marriage and in the middle of Copenhagen city, a distance away. That marriage was of a Anders Hansen (the fifth one of this tale) and Maren Pedersdatter, each considerably older that the correct one. I disconnected that marriage source.

2. The incorrect Anders Hansen, born in 1831, found in the first record, had actually been connected to Maren Pedersdatter years ago, because it  showed temple work done for them in 1932. This error goes back almost 100 years. To be double sure about this other Anders Hansen,  I tried to find out what happened specifically to him. In searching the records, I could not find him in any other information: military, census, etc., until I looked in the death records for the parish. Anders Hansen, born in Hundie 27 August 1831 died eight weeks later on 20 October 1831. The record clearly showed his father's name as Hans Christoffersen, not Hans Albrechtsen, so this Anders Hansen really was the wrong one.

Conclusion

Often you will find in Danish records a lot of people with the same name in the same place. Some are even married to someone with the same name as the spouse — in the same place and time period.

If FamilySearch suggests a source record blue link: or a duplicate needing merging  red link: , please, PLEASE check out the details closely before accepting and connecting, merging, or changing records. It is worth taking some time to look at the original records for some details not listed in the suggested action. Usually the extracted or indexed data taken from original records do not include some important information, such as the names of other people, or other dates such as vaccination dates, or ages of the people at the time of the event.

In Denmark you can not just go by a name and a place. These names are just too common — until about 1900 when they started giving multiple middle names and more exotic names  (ever heard of Viggo Mortensen?).

The Tale of Three (or four) Marens - An Instructive Tale

 When I started this, I knew of three Danish women who were somehow combined in the FamilySearch records, one of which is my second-great aunt (I now know of at least one more). It started when I received a "Recommended Task" on the start page of FamilySearh.org after logging in, pointing to a Jens Rasmussen. As I looked at it, I noticed that there might be a problem. Family members seemed to be from several different locations, including children born in two different areas, intermingled. Danish families at this time did not move around that much, as a rule, so that always puts up flags in my eyes.

There is a positive ending to this tale. See my latest findings at the end of the main narrative.

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The Three Marens

My second-great aunt is Maren Jakobsdatter, born in Svogerslev, Copenhagen. As I looked at her records in FamilySearch the other day, I noticed the she was listed as the wife of a Jens Rasmussen. Upon further research, I discovered that this "family" in FamilySearch was really a combination of people from three separate families. Each of these families contained a person named Maren Jacobsdatter, all born between 1805 and 1808, two of them were married to men named Jens Rasmussen, but up until this point Iwas unaware that my second-great aunt was married at all.

Here are a few details of these three families (including only the relevant members):

1.

Jakob (or Jacob) Olsen and his wife Kirsten Hansdatter, of Høje Tåstrup, near Copenhagen;

And their daughter: Maren Jacobsdatter, born 19 December 1808 in Svogerslev, also near Copenhagen

She is my second-great aunt

2. 

Jacob Eylersen (or Eilertsen) and his wife Ane Jensdatter of Tryggelev in Svendborg, a small island off the coast of the main islands;

And their daughter: Maren Jacobsdatter, born 18 February 1808 in Tryggelev

3.

Jacob Haugaard and his wife Kirsten Hansdatter of Hammer in the county of Præstø;

And their daughter: Maren Jacobsdatter, christened 3 March 1805

The husbands are:

2. 

Jens Rasmussen, son of  Rasmus Hansen and Maren Jensdatter, born in Magelby, Svendborg 9 June 1809

This Jens and Maren were married in Magleby on 22 Feb 1837.

3. 

Jens Rasmussen, son of Rasmus Pedersen and Maren Nielsdatter, of Bårse, Præstø, christened 16 Oct 1813

This Jens and Maren were married in Bårse on 27 May 1835.

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Following this report, I did a summary, looking at the 1845 census for each of these families (2 and 3) and see definitively that each Maren is listed with her own birthplace (as the birthplaces begin to appear in the 1845 Danish Census records).

Since disconnecting these "Maren"s, I felt that my efforts needed to then work on finding a real family for Maren. In searching some census records in her own area (Roskilde), I did, in the process of verifying what I found from the census records, looking in to the parish records, her husband and family. It turns out that she did get married, in 1838, to  Niels Nielsen. Census records show that all this is correct. 

However, as I started putting the family together, I discovered that each of their children were included in a different family already in Oudrup, Ålborg, Denmark, far away from Roskilde. That family had had parents listed as Niels Nielsen and Maren Jacobsdatter (the fourth Maren), but recently had the Maren disconnected following the same process I used to put people in the correct places in FamilySearch.

The happy conclusion of all this is that These three Maren Jacobsdatter families are now correctly pur together in FamilySearch and I now can continue to build my Maren Jacobsdatter's family from this point on.

The "instructive" part of all this is that people who are presented with the option to Merge people in FamilySearch, especially in Danish records, should be VERY careful and do not take any of these suggestions at face value. Check for the locations especially, and if the people are from different counties (Amts) or the dates seem a little funny, please check them out before continuing with the merge process. As a rule, when I discover where a merge was done that should not have, I try to not just pull it apart (with difficulty at times), but try to find correct family information and connect them to the correct families, even (and usually) when they are not related to me.