My Great Grand Parents
My great grandparnets – there
are 8 of them, fourth generation
Now we’re in the time which starts in 1824 on my fathers side.
My mothers side first starts in 1860
We are in the period where land and population are unlighted and dark as soon as
we leave the cities. Nothing of what we know today of social initiative can be
found and the people were either very poor or rich, middle class is non-existent,
even craftsman belonged to the poor. There were just rich merchants and of
course the noble and they held all the power. It was the noble together with the
King that ruled the country, wrote out taxes. The Danish cash box was constantly
in need because of the Kings extravagant life and for the things that they owned.
The techinical wonder couldn’t be found, everything had to be done manually and
the work was usually hard. The working class wore themselves out under the slave
like conditions, low wages and 12 hours or more work days. All sanitary things
were outside and there were no house with water installed. They fetched the
water outside from a well. Out in the country the wells weren’t so deep so the
water they had was surface water. They drank thin beer where the yeast killed
most of the bacteria. There was a large political uproar in Europe at that time
and in 1864 Denmark was in war against Germany, where from the fall of Dybbøl
became famous. Why we lost the war I don’t know. In Norway the Swedish tried to
take a part of the land which they believed belonged to them. There also the
fight against the English, which we also lost.
The one set of great grandparents on my fathers side are: Anders Jensen & Ane
Marie Pedersdatter. I have no pictures of them. I don’t know very much of my
fathers family because my parents separated and I lived with my mother. Anders
Jensen was born on the 9th. of March in 1824 in Skørring in Djursland. As like
most of the children living in the country, he went to work at the age of 16,
after his confirmation, on Søren Jensen’s farm. Later on we found him working in
Ørslev Mølle and it was here he got married. He lived in a small holding so he
could feed his family. He added to his earnings by going into the army, whereas
he was several times, first time in 1846. We can see abit of his height, for his
soldier papers say that he was 62,5 inches tall. He was in a commando unit and
became decorated (Dannebrogsmand). His wife Ane Marie Pedersdatter was born in
1832 on the 20th. of September. She worked on a farm in Ørslev and it was here
where she met my great grandfather. The married in 1852 on the 5th. of October.
1890
Ane Marie Pedersdatter around 1890
Jesper Sørensen & Ane Marie Jørgensdatter are the other great grandparents on my
father’s side. Jesper Sørensen was born on the 26th. of Feburary 1837 in
Todbjerg. He was a working hand on a farm when he met my great grandmother whom
was with child with him. Jesper wouldn’t acknowledge this child and refused
fathership. If there weren’t witnesses at that time then man’s word was enough
to stamp the girl a liar. He moved around and then became a worker in Randers.
On the 8th. of April 1876 at the age of 39 had an accident at work which caused
his death. Ane Marie Jørgensdatter was a maid. She was born on the 28th. of May
1836. After giving birth to her child she had to leave the area. At that time it
was a big sin to have a child out of wedlock. She was located in Gammel Estrup
manor where she died on the 8th. of June 1865, just 29 years old. To have a
child out of wedlock and being a maid was a disaster at that time. Not very many
people would hire one like that, because the wives would think that it was
immoral and were afraid that their man or men would not pay for the food for one
extra. The pay was often food and housing, a few meters housespun, a par of
wooden shoes and a few krones a year for a maid and less if there was a child
included.
Julius Christian Fredrik Johansen & Vilhelmine Sofie Ravn are great grandparents
on my mother’s side. Julius Christian Fredrik Johansen was a plumber and born
after 1835. I still haven’t found the correct date yet, but it will be coming.
According to population count he was born on 127 Borgergade, but that is being
looked into. When he met my great grandmother he lived on 6 Bohusgade, fifth
floor, in Copenhagen. He didn’t marry my great grandmother, because after he got
her pregnant, he emigrated to USA. Great grandmother Vilhelmine Sofie Ravn was
2nd. generation immigrant, which is a swear word in Danmark now a days, but we
all are an immigrant one way or the other. She was born on the 14th. of Feburary
1860 in Copenhagen’s Trinitatis sogn. As an adult she also lived on the fifth
floor on 6 Bohusgade, maybe the in the back apartment or room. She is registered
there in 1865, but the father to her child was not, so maybe had he already
emigrated. At the age of 22 she was a maid to a restaurateur Oscar Christian
Røder on 20 Rømersgade in Copenhagen. She later married Teodor Valdemar
Rasmussen and had more children. On the picture under here is Teodor and
Vilhelmine and their children taken around 1890. My grandfather is furthest to
the right. Click on it to inlarge it.
{Vilhelmine
and family, the boy furthest to the right is my grandfather on my mother’s side
Bernt Andreas Dahl & Beret Martha Pedersdatter is the last par of great
grandparents here. We are now in Norway in a very poor time. Bernt Andreas Dahl
was born on the 4th. of November 1871 in Skogn, North Trøndelag. One of the
godfathers at his baptismal was Christoffer Christiansen Dahl, is maybe related.
I don’t know much about Bernt from before he married. He worked as a casual
worker on different farms and when my grandmother (on my mothers side) was born
he worked in a colour fabric or a dyeworks in Åsen. At one time he was called
Kolsumvald, but that place laid near Kolsum farm, but he never stayed there. At
one time he worked laying tracks at the beginning of Stjørdals Railway. It was a
hard and wearing job with 12 to 14 hours days and for little pay. They moved
from Kolsum to Stjørdal, where they lived in a room on a farm. He emigrated to
USA in 1905 to search for happiness and maybe find a home for himself in
Muskegon City in the state of Michigan. According to Border Crossing Records, he
crossed the border between Canada and USA with Muskegon as his destination,
where his brother and family waited him. He near showed up. No one knows what
happened to him. I have, with looking into it, found a Bernt Andreas Dahl in
1935, living in North Dakota, but the age doesn’t fit. My grandmother (on my
mother’s side) had said that after he arrived in America she received a letter
where it was written that he was very sick, and if they didn’t hear anything
from him, that he had past away. At this time I have people working, in
Muskegon, looking for information on him, for instance a gravesite. Beret Martha
Pedersdatter was born on Perolausplass under Kolsum farm on the 2nd. of
September 1873. It was a wooden hut with one room, where it was living room,
dinning room and bedroom all in one for the whole family. They were very poor.
When she moved, she moved to Levanger as a laundress for other people. She
raised her children with strickness, but as my grandmother (on my mother’s side)
later said, she was aware of what happened in her youth and saw through her
fingers, such as when grandmother sneaked out at night to meet the man in her
life, whom became my grandfather (on my mother’s side). She lived at the same
place until her death in 1958. I have met her, but I don’t remember her, but
then in my memory I see an old lady whom spoke a foreign language, maybe it was
her.
Beret Martha Pedersdatter, at a young age, at
the age of 60 and the last in a senior home in 1956 Click
to in large