Close and distant relatives in Denmark

Startet af Hipame, 25 Nov 2020 - 17:26

Forrige emne - Næste emne

Hipame

Dear forum members,

There is something that has been unsettling me for a week and I hope you will be able to give me some pointers or perspectives, if not answers.

A few weeks ago my sister did a DNA test to try to learn more about our origins. Our family is from Britany, France from as long as our memory can reach and we were curious to see if we could go further in time.
We learnt with the test that our family only probably reached France during the (late) medieval period and that we have very strong roots in Denmark (viking time). The assumption is that our ancestor were viking settlers in the British islands that fled to some remote part of Britany after the Anglo-Saxon invasion. I wrote "remote" because it doesn't seem we had a lot of mixing along the way.

We also discovered something else which is the true subject of this post. My sister has a close living relative in Denmark, assuming the DNA results are reliable. We only have the name and year of birth of this person but we found out that this person has a sibling living in Copenhagen.
The amount of DNA my sister shares with this person is too high to be a "lost" 2nd degree cousin. We are hesitant to make contact because we don't know how this person and family would react. 

There are still points we would like to understand without asking question to our nearest and to find out we will need to some information that we hope are publicly available. Is there public marriage / birth register in Denmark? Are weddings or birth publicly announced in newspapers?

Thank you.

Grethe Leerbech

Hi
Churchbooks up to 1935 are available, but one has to know the place, (called sogn), town or city where the birth or wedding took place. Eventually the name of the church
If one is married at the townhall, you have to look for the register from there-if it is available. But it is possible to write to the town administration to ask, it costs a few dollar.

Some did announce in newspapers, both marriage and baptisme, but there are several newpapers to go through. The tree importants are: Politiken, Berlingske and Jyllands Posten- They are not on the net for from the 1900s
Thyholm,Vang, Gislum,Hornum,Hindsted, Slet, Års i Aalborg a. Ginding,Ringkøbing a.Rinds, Fjends,Hindborg,Viborg a. Nybøl, Sottrup,Sønderbog a.sogne i Tyskland, Sunds,Svendborg a.Tuse,Års,Løve i Holbæ

Inger Buchard

Churchbooks are available online
https://www.sa.dk/ao-soegesider/da/geo/geo-collection/5
until ab. 1960 (deaths 1970). But you'll have long winter's nights searching all parishes of Copenhagen [looking up at www.sa.dk... you'll have to use the Danish version København]

If you know the name of the sibling you might find him/her in the telephone directories of Copenhagen
http://www.ptt-museum.dk/samlinger_bibliotek/bibliotek/digitale_boeger_registre/telefonboeger_fra_ktas/
I just hope the person you seek is not a Jensen (or Hansen, Petersen etc -sen!!)

And why not write an ordinary letter? Just be open in your asking, tell what you know and what you want to know. If the answer is silence you can't get further, but normally people get curious and answer. Anyway people using DNA-genealogy want to get in touch...
I found an illegitimate brother of my father's doing so this summer - he was happy to learn about his grandfather, of whom he knew nothing up to receiving my letter.

Inger Buchard
Redaktør på DIS-Wiki

Inger Toudal

Venlig hilsen
Inger Toudal

Hipame

Thank you for the links Inger

Citat fra: Inger Buchard Dato 26 Nov 2020 - 11:05

I found an illegitimate brother of my father's doing so this summer - he was happy to learn about his grandfather, of whom he knew nothing up to receiving my letter.

We not are contemplating anyone "illegitimate" but, several alternatives that all results in closer links to the one you mentioned. Some of them have young kids in their scenarios. My sister and I  would like to know because it might touch us personally but we don't want to cause any trauma in families in Denmark or in France.