As you can see, I am going beyond the first few Danish research guide blog posts. I had some success recently and decided it might be useful to share the methods I used in my success.
Lost or Forgotten Children in your Families
As records are searched and people added to your Danish families, depending on the sources you use, you might be missing some children. This especially comes when the commonly used sources come from census records. This is true for research work all over the world as well, but often the easy way to put together a family group in Danish records is from the census records. True, this is the primary way to actually connect people because the other records usually do not list family members together as well as census records do.
As is often the case in the world, children die young all too often. When a child is born and dies in those years between census tallies, they get missed if the census records are the only records used.
In Danish records, the parish records for years after 1892 (other than some marriage records), FamilySearch does not have transcribed records available for searching. However, Ancestry.com often does have these records transcribed and are searchable.
One thing to point out in all this is the great progress continually being made in records preservation and transcriptions (e.g. Indexing), so the need and usefulness of the methods shown in this document might be less useful at any time in the future. However, I found these to be good methods for finding lost children using the records currently available.
The Family of Albert Magnus Georg Petersen
I recently searched for and found the marriage of Christine Sofie Larsen. In the process, I found that her husband, Albert Magnus Georg Petersen, was already in the FamilySearch system with a wife of the correct name for this record. They did not have the marriage information, but it all matched the marriage record I found. The temple ordinance work was already completed for Albert and his wife, Christine, as well as for the two children they found for them:
The sons listed were born in Copenhagen. Many times, when I see Copenhagen, I expect to not have much success in searching records because it is such a large city with many churches and parishes. It is usually not worth trying to search all the parish records not knowing where they might be.
Fortunately, I found their marriage in a simple search in Ancestry.com. I corrected the marriage date and place and included the source for all that. They were married on 8 May 1898 in the Sankt (Saint) Lukas church in Copenhagen. The two children added came from the 1906 census records. I did a cursory search in the Saint Lukas church for the birth of the first son, but came up empty.
The main point that caught my attention, and is the point of this article, is that there is a 3-year gap between the marriage and the birth of the first child. That is definitely possible, but there is reason to look for an additional child who probably died young.
Recently I have noticed a pattern in the Ancestry.com search results where a child’s record was found, but not mentioned in the search results list. Here is what I mean. When I look at either Christine or Albert and click on the “Search” options on the right, and click on “Ancestry,”
I get a list of possible matches in the Ancestry.com records. Even when I do not narrow the search, I sometimes see entries that show the parent’s whole name, but not much else. I have learned that in those cases, sometimes, it is a match for that person as a parent in a child’s record, and it might be a child I am not aware of. Here is an example showing three of these types of matches for Christine. (Note, in this list, the first entry is for her marriage and the third is for her birth):
These suggested records show “Birth, baptism & christening,” but often, they are also death and burial records, which is the case here. The key is to look for the lack of information below the name. I often find that such records are very useful (except when they are not ;-):
as you can see when I click on the small image shown, I get:
which is a death record for Svend Aage Otto Vilhelm Petersen. You have probably noticed that the first child listed in the family is named Svend Aage Otto Petersen (no Vilhelm), so you might think that this is the same person. However, as you look at the record, he was 2 1/2 years old when he died on 3 February 1901. The Svend listed has a birth date of 29 June 1901. Often in Denmark, when a child dies young, the next (or a next) child born will be given the same name. This is the case for this family. They were married and a few months later, a son was born and then died within a few months of the birth of the next child, who also happened to be a son.
Of course, errors are made in recording, etc. and it might be a mistake in this case, but that is why it is important to pursue the actual parish records. Even though the records are here available through Ancestry.com, I like to go to the Danish state archives services to get the records and look for more records.
Ancestry.com gives excellent information as you can see. The record comes from the 1898-1909 Sankt (Saint) Thomas parish records. I brought up those records:
and found the very same record on page 84 (image 86):
With that, I created the source information:
https://arkivalieronline.rigsarkivet.dk/da/billedviser?bsid=156260#156260,26177559
Sankt Thomas, Sokkelund, København Kontraministerialbog 1898-1909 male deaths
page 84 image 86 entry 24 for 1901 male burials
d. 1901 13 February
bur. 17 February 1901 Frederiksberg churchyard
Svend Aage Otto Vilhelm Petersen
son of Albert Magnus Georg Petersen and wife Christine Sofie, born Larsen
age 2 1/2 years
I see that the burial place was actually Frederiksberg, a very large church in Copenhagen. ( I also found that in a later Ancestry.com record hint in that list). So I added that record, which included his birth date in the record.
I found the death record in the 1899-1903 book for records for Frederiksberg male deaths:
and then I found the birth record, according to the date given:
From this I created the source entry for his birth:
https://arkivalieronline.rigsarkivet.dk/da/billedviser?bsid=149683#149683,24768744
Frederiksberg, Sokkelund, København Kontraministerialbog 1896-1899 male births
page 268 image 269 entry 287 for 1898 male christenings
b. 29 June 1898
Svend Aage Otto Vilhelm Petersen
parents: Albert Magnus Georg Petersen and wife Christine Sophie Larsen, age 25
chr. 14 August 1898
Conclusion
If I had taken these records at face value, I would have missed finding this small boy. I can now take his name in for the ordinance of sealing to parents. The point of this is that there are often gaps or clues in details showing that records could be searched to find lost children.
- Joseph F. Buchanan
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