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?).
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