52 Ancestors: Document - The Lesson of Oertha

So many of these prompts have been too open-ended for me, and only by trying to consign myself to one family branch a week of my tree have I been able to come up with ideas for these posts. This is definitely one of those posts. I have so many fabulous records I could talk about, but in the end, I've settled on one that's not so much a record, but a hand written tree I had a copy of almost from the beginning.

My great-grandfather Holger's family stayed well connected through my childhood. Even to the point where my great-aunt held a yearly family gathering in her town of Idylwild in California. So I met many of my grandmother's close and distant cousins as well as other relations over the years. So their father's father's line is very well connected, even back in Denmark where they came from. Their father's mother's line, on the other hand, petered out after a few generations when I first received it, ending in a woman whose name I always had recorded as Oertha. I'd always thought it a bit odd, but as I searched, I found Oerthas here and there, so I figured it was a Scandinavian name, and chalked it up to that. But I never managed to get past that part of my tree. My third-great grandfather, Jørgen Larsen, was her son, which is an unfortunately common name in Denmark, so I despaired of ever getting further back.

Then, in the early 2000s, I made friends with several people online who were from Denmark, and still living there. I was pleased to tell them about my family, and how my grandmother was Danish, like them, even though she was born in the US. From time to time, they would help me out with that branch of the family, and with translations of the documents I found. Then, one day, I was nudging at Oertha again, and asked one of them if they'd ever heard the name before. We talked for a bit, and ended up focusing on Jørgan instead--which is what led to the breakthrough. We found the church book where his birth was recorded. And listed his parents' names as Lars Andersen and Birthe Marie Sørensdatter. 

It's not uncommon to get a name transcribed wrong when it comes to genealogy and family history, so I went back to my documents to see where the info had come from. I looked through several versions of the family tree to see how it was originally written, only to discover that "Oertha" had been handwritten at the very top of the page, so the top of the B in Birthe had been cut off, and with the handwriting had quickly turned into an O.

Because of this find, I have now gotten several more generations back on this line. So the lesson here? Just because it's always been listed that way on your family tree, don't take it for granted. Always question everything, because you never know where that info came from until you look into it. Especially when you're stuck there. Usually brick walls in your family tree come about because something was written down wrong somewhere. Come at it from a different angle to see if new information comes up. You never know what you might find.

Surname Saturday 2.0: The Larsens

The Larsen Family

My Danish family roots are some of the best-researched lines in my family tree. Despite the fact that my great grandfather came here from Denmark as a young man, he kept in contact with many of his siblings all of his life, and because of that, his children knew them quite well. A few years after their father's death, my great aunt decided to start up a yearly family gathering for this clan, and so the extended family remained close, despite distances.

The Larsens were my great-grandfather's mother's family, and while we know about her immediate family, more distant ancestors are less well-known. What we do know mostly comes from his mothers's sister's family. Margrethe Isaksen nee Larsen and her husband came to the US in the late 1800s or early 1900s, and settled in New York, and raised three children there. When my great-grandfather came to America, he stayed with them until he got on his feet, and remained in touch with them until his aunt's death.

The Larson family was from the Jutland area of Denmark. She and her family lived right in the center area of Jutland, and all of the children in the family were born in a town called Nyvindbjerg, in the district of Ringive. Their father Jorgen Larsen was a farmer, and aside from Margrethe, most married and settled in and around the district of Ringive with their spouses, most of whom were also farmers, or on farms of their own.

Until recently, that was about as far as I could go for this side of the family, but some help from a couple of friends in Denmark changed everything. From the time I began my search, I had Jorgen's parents listed as Lars Christiansen and Oertha, not even sure if that was a first or last name. Unfortunately, Jorgen Larsen is an incredibly common name, so I had given up hope of finding more until I asked one of them one day. He came up with a record of Jorgen's birth for that parish, and also listed were his parents: Lars Andersen and Birthe Marie Sorensen. Apparently, Oertha was a transcription error, which I discovered when I looked through all the older copies of the family tree, which made the top of the B cut off so that it looked more like an O.

I've since found a great deal more thanks to family search, though I have yet to actually get in touch with this branch for help in determining where they got their information. Still, it gets me a great deal further.

The Larsen line is as follows, for those interested:

* Lars Andersen was born about 1794 in Vejle, Denmark. He married Birthe Marie Sorensen 1820 in the same area, and they had eight children together.
+ Anders, born 1820.
+ Mette born 1823.
+ Else Marie born 1827.
+ Johannes born 1829.
+ Peder born 1833.
+ Soren Christian born 1835.
+ Jorgen born 1837, married Ivare Kirstine 1863, died 1923. See below for more detail.
+ Elias born 1840.

* Jorgen Larsen and Ivare Kirstine had 9 children together:
+ Else Katrine was born 1865. She married Jens Christian Hansen in 1885, and they had 8 children together, the third of which was my great grandfather Holger. She died in 1934.

+ Kristine was born in 1870. She married Peter Andreasen, and died in 1957. I have no children listed for them.
+ Birte Marie was born in 1870 as well, though nine months after Kristine. She married Jens Ibsen Laurberg. I have no other information on her life, so I am uncertain when she died or if she had children.
+ Mette Margrethe (known as Margrethe) was born 1873. She married Isak Isaksen. The two had three children: Peter, Jorgen, and Tula, all of whom had families of their own, and their descendants still live in the New York area today. Margrethe died in 1970.
+ Lars Kristian was born 1876. He married Marie Damgaard, and died in 1955. I do not have any children listed for them.
+ Maren Kirstine was born 1878. She married Christian Christensen, and died in 1957.
+ Soren was born 1880. He married Marie Eskildsen. I have no further information on this family, or if the couple had any children.
+ Dagmar Augusta was born 1883. She married Reiar Aasberg, and died 1973. I do not know if this couple had any children.
+ Ane Marie was born 1886. She married Niels Peter Skov Jensen (whom I believe was a cousin of Else's husband) in 1906. She died in 1960. I am uncertain if this couple had any children.

What I don't know:

* While I managed to get past the block of Jorgen's parents, and have managed to get several generation back further on his mother's side, on his father's side I have not been so lucky. Lars Andersen is unfortunately as common as Jorgan Larsen. I keep attempting to find more, but as of yet, I know little about him.

* I would love to find out who his parents were, and also how many siblings he had.

* In a similar vein, I would love to know more about the rest of his children aside from Jorgen. How many children did they have? When did they die? Where did they live with their spouses?

* I would also love to know when Lars and Berthe died, as I do not have death dates for either of them.

Other information about this branch of the family:
> Larsen Surname Saturday Post
> Where We're From – United States
> Where We're From – Denmark
> Women's History Month Week 1

Wow…apparently I don't write about this line much. It's too far back to be a proper brick wall, and it's buried deep in a family line that's fairly well researched, so that's probably why. I'll have to remedy that, though. It's an interesting line. And one that's actually better on the female lines than the male. Both for my g-g grandmother and for her father's mother, too.