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 1890Jesper 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 sideBernt 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.
