Hansen Placeline

I actually have several Hansen branches in my family tree, so I will clarify here that this is my grandmother's father's line, who lived in Jutland, Denmark for most of the time I have info on them. This line starts with my dad's mother, Margaret Hansen Hillinger, who was the first generation of her line to be born in the US.

As before, Bold is the location major life events such as birth, marriage, and death, and Italics is any other locations where they lived for at least a year.

1. Margaret Hansen Hillinger

A. Issaquah, Washington. When my grandmother needed more help in her daily life, she moved to a place close to both my aunts, settling in Issaquah. She passed at my aunts' home at the age of 90.

B. Seattle, Washington. She and my grandfather moved to Seattle with their young son (my father) after he finished his schooling at Ohio State because they heard it was close to skiiing, which tipped their decision of where to move in Seattle's favor. They raised all four of their children here, and all of their children still live in Washington today.

C. Columbus, Ohio. Nana lived here with dad and her husband while he attended Ohio state to become an accountant.

D. Frankfurt, Germany. Nana applied to help out cleaning up the war front after the war was over, and was stationed in Weisbaden, Germany, which is a suburb of Frankfurt. While here, she met and married my grandfather, and their first child, my dad was born. 

E. War years. Nana had several posts throughout the war, including: Fort Hays, Ohio, where she was first inducted into the US Army; Daytona Beach, Florida; DesMoines, Iowa, where she trained for Officer Candidate School; Fort Oglethorp, Georgia; and finally a position in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where she was when the war ended. After that, she transferred to the European front to help in the cleanup after the war.

F. Cleveland, Ohio. After finishing her schooling, she moved back in with her father full time, and worked in town as a secretary until she signed up for the war.

G. Willoughby, Ohio. Nana got the chance to attend Andrews, a boarding school for girls in a town near Cleveland, and graduated from there with a sense of purpose, wanting to make her way in the world. The school still exists today, now called Andrews Osbourne Acadamy, which is now co-ed.

H. Cleveland, Ohio. Nana was born in a growing community of Danes in Cleveland. Her father ran a business building houses, and the family moved often from one house to a new one as he finished houses. She and her sister and brother had a good life with their parents until their mother passed in 1929. After her death, their father remarried, and Nana struggled until she got the opportunity to go to boarding school, despite the fact that the whole country was in a depression.

2. Holger Skov Hansen

A. Cleveland, Ohio. After meeting his future wife, Oline, Holger moved to Cleveland, where they married in 1918. They had three children together before her death in 1929. He married again soon after to a woman named Rose, and the two raised their five children together in a difficult time. He continued his house building business until it became too difficult to do so, and she spent her time selling houses, so they worked well in tandem. She died in 1972, and he died five years later in 1977.

B. New York, New York. When Holger first came to the US, he landed in New York. I don't know a great deal about this time of his life. I haven't even been able to pin down when he first came. His paperwork says he was going to Long Island, where I think his aunt and uncle lived, so he may have lived with them full time, or may have lived on his own, but either way, he did bricklaying in the area to make a living until he met his first wife, and they moved together to Cleveland to marry.

C. Thyregod, Vejle, Denmark. Holger was born in a small town called Hinskov in the Thyregod area of Vejle, Denmark. His family had lived there for several generations, and he was only able to move to the US when the national train service chose to put a station near their home. He and his father worked on the project (which still stands today), and that was how Holger made the money he used to come to the US.

3. Jens Christian Hansen

A. Thyregod, Vejle, Denmark. Jens and his family lived and died in this area for two generations. His children scattered out across the country and the world as they married. One son to England, several more across the sea to the US, but he and his wife lived and farmed here until they passed.

4. Hans Knudsen

We're now in the murky area of this part of my family tree. What I have here is what I have found on Ancestry in large part, and therefore there may be incorrect. 

A. Thyregod, Vejle, Denmark. Like his son, Hans lived and died here, never moving from the place his father had found to farm.

5. Knud Knudsen

A. Thyregod, Vejle, Denmark. By the time Knud married, he was in the Vejle area. I'm not sure how he met his wife, or why he moved there (possibly because of the marriage, but perhaps not), but all of his children were born there, and he died there in 1866 at the age of 71.

B. Hammer, Skanderborg, Denmark. According to the records I currently have, this is where Knud was born. I have no idea when he left the area and came to Vejle.

6. Knud Madsen

A. Hammer, Skanderborg, Denmark. I have even less information on Knud Madsen than I have on his son. I don't have a birth location beyond Denmark for him, but his marriage record locates him in Hammer, and I know his son was born there as well. I presume he likely lived in the area until he died, though I don't have more than Denmark as his death location as well. 

I have a seventh generation back, but as of yet, I can't be certain I have the right names, as I have an alternate as well, so I won't put him here for now. As you can see, this gets sketchier as I go back in time, but I keep working to find more information on this line, so hopefully someday soon, I will find more.

Nine locations for this one. Less than the previous two, but still a good number. I'm finding it fascinating that even back in the "old world," my family moved around a lot more than we think they did.