Jens Peder Pedersen

After laying some foundational stories about why and how I got started researching my dad's family tree, now it's time to start piecing together the families as I begin walking you through our ancestors/roots.  I'm going to start with Jens Peder Pedersen's beginnings.  He was my great-grandfather, and he is where the story really begins anyway.  :o)

He was born in Pandrup in North Jutland (Nordjylland) in February 1880.  He had 3 sisters and, at least for awhile, 3 brothers.  The family lived in Klostergaard Hede.

Jens' parents were Jens Pedersen and Ane Catherine Jensen.  Jens was from Pandrup, but Ane Catherine was from a neighboring county, Ålborg, from a parish called Biersted.  The part that always interests me the most and causes me to ask the most questions is how did they meet?  Did the families know one another, or did Jens and Ane just happen to bump into one another at a market and think, "Wow!"  It always makes me wonder.  I like to think that there were some boyish smiles and girlish giggles going on.  :o)

In the first year of their marriage, Jens and Ane welcomed a baby girl into their home and named her Karen Elline.  Three years later, they welcomed another girl, Inger Marie Petrea.  I'm sure Jens was patiently expecting a boy a couple of years later.  And he wasn't disappointed.  Jens Erik was born in October 1878.  A short two years later, Jens Peder was born, then just over a year, another boy was born whom they named Knud.  (I guess two Jens in the family was enough!) 

This part gets me asking too.  If they had boys who were both named Jens, did they call them by their middle names Erik and Peder?  It would make sense, but who knows for sure. 

Sadly, the following spring, Jens and Ane lost two of their boys.  Jens Erik and Knud died just over a month apart.  The death records don't state a reason for the deaths, but it can only be surmised that some illness was making the rounds.  It could be anything from a nasty round of the flu or something more sinister like smallpox.  It's impossible to know for sure without some sort of documentation.

As a mom, I just can't imagine losing two children in that short a time, and at those ages!  Jens Erik was only 3 1/2 and Knud had just celebrated his first birthday two months prior.  I also wonder if any of the other children were also sick, but survived.  There are so many questions that come up while doing this sort of research.  I imagine Jens held onto his remaining son a little more tightly after losing the other two.

The following summer, they welcomed another baby girl whom they named Ane Christine (or Kristine).  She became known to us as Stine, great-grandfather's sister who also emigrated to America.  A healthy six years later, they had another boy whom they named Jens Eriksen.  Sadly, again, less than a year later, they lost him on a cold February day in 1890.  What a grief to overcome - losing three children in less than eight years!

After their children moved on, married, and raised families of there own...two of whom remained in Denmark, the other two making a new life for themselves in America, Jens and Ane Catherine must have settled into a little quieter life.  Ane lived to be only 67 years old, which considering all that she had been through in her life, it's not overly surprising.  However, Jens lived to the good age of 79.  The first time I saw the following picture, I mentioned that it reminds me so much of Dad (he even owns a hat like in the picture!)...something in the mouth or the eyes.  I like to think that Jens was a happy man, and that those good genes have been passed along to his descendants.

This research has been so much fun!  And it's amazing how easy it really is to find information.  All it takes is a good starter bit of info!  :o)

Below is the chart showing Jens' and Ane's information, along with the information for their children.  (Just a note - if the pictures or anything with writing is too small, just click on it to open it in a new window.  It will be shown at original size and will be easier to read.)  Next time, we'll take a look at Johanne's (Jens Peder's wife - my great-grandmother) family!

To be continued...

First Generation Danish Americans - Pedersen Style

Even though I've already introduced my great-grandparents and given some history of their journey to America in 1916, I decided the best place to start, as far as laying out the family tree, was with them and "the siblings", as I've been affectionately referring to my grandmother and her siblings. 

Jens and Johanne started their family in Pandrup, in Northern Jutland.  Johanne was from a village called Vester Hjermitslev, not far away.  They were married in Vester Hjermitslev kirke on February 9, 1901, just 8 days after the 1901 census was taken.  The interesting point of this being that Johanne is listed in the household of her future in-laws as a slægtning, or relative. 

That was the first thing I noticed, but the second was that Jens is not listed in his parents' household.  Based on the fact that I knew he was a blacksmith, my first guess was that he was probably either working as an apprentice somewhere.  I have searched and haven't found him on another census...yet.  But I'll keep looking.

The following is a picture of the marriage record in the kirkebøger, or church book.  This is the official record of Jens' and Johanne's wedding.  He is titled as a smed, or smith, and it's noted he's from Saltum parish rather than Jetsmark, which I think supports the idea that he was working elsewhere learning the trade of blacksmith when the 1901 census was recorded.  But, that's just speculation looking at the pieces of the puzzle.  There is no way to know for sure.

Don't you just love these old records???  I do!!!

After Jens and Johanne married, they settled for a time in Ingstrup parish, where their first son was born.  After that, they moved back to Pandrup, where their family shows up on the 1906 census.  I have no information about this intermediate move, but I can only speculate.  Jens may have been employed by someone else as a blacksmith until he could finally afford to open his own shop...who knows.  There could be any number of reasons why they moved and then moved again so soon. 

The biggest move was when they pulled up roots and moved to Tylstrup.  That was a big undertaking for the time.  But, after learning about their eldest son (refer to earlier posts for the full story), it was no surprise that they would have done what they could to be close to him.

Eventually, the family made the decision to come to America.  My grandmother was born about 4 months later....a first generation American, barely.  :o)  (I find it funny that so many misspellings appear on Grandma's birth certificate, when the oath at the top says that it is a "true and correct" copy.)

 

Just over 2 years later (almost to the day), baby Gladys was born.  Sadly, only 3 months later, she contracted pertussis (whooping cough) and died.  She is buried somewhere in the Elk Horn, IA cemetery.  The people working at the church the day my parents were there asking where to find her told them that, likely, because the family was still relatively new to the area and still getting settled, they may not have had to money to pay for a private plot.  Gladys may have been buried in a "common plot", or an area that was donated by someone else, with no headstone.  Off to one side of the cemetery is a huge tree with a lot of older headstones around it.  I like to think that baby Gladys is resting there under its branches, but we will never know for sure.

 



Putting everything in context, I often wonder how Johanne dealt with all she was handed in life...as a mother.  First, she left her eldest son behind in Denmark knowing she would never see him again.  Then, just a couple of years later, she lost a baby girl to illness.  I can't imagine the aching in her heart.  :o(  And I can only begin to imagine what it was like for my grandmother when my own father contracted pertussis as a little boy.  Thinking about it, she had to be terrified that she could lose one of her own children to the same thing that claimed her baby sister.  So scary!  While doing this research, I find myself sooooo often looking at all of it with a mother's heart.

By the time Jens and Johanne celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary, they had parented 11 children!  I believe the following picture very well could have been taken at their 50th anniversary party.

I'm going to depend on someone who knows (my dad) to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they are (back, left to right): Lyle, Erik, Norman, Leona (my grandmother), Helga, Ofelt, Herluf, and (front, left to right): Emma, Jens, Johanne, and Erma.

And finally, outside of the "human element", the bracket that shows who's who:

To be continued...

Cousins Reunited

It's always amazing to me how life seems to continue moving along, thwarting all of my efforts to keep on task with a project I have a passion for.  The last few weeks have been no exception!  Without going into detail about all of the chaotic and stressful events that have been going on in my life, suffice it to say that this blog has been neglected.  But no more...not if I can help it.

When I last posted, I was writing about getting my parents to Elk Horn to "meet" my dad's cousins.  I contacted Ardell and let her know when my parents and I would be making a trip up, and I asked if it would be possible to get together while we were there.  She graciously accepted an invitation to have a cup of coffee with us in the afternoon, but couldn't promise anything more as she had things of her own going on.  And, unfortunately, her sister Colleen was out of town the weekend we were going to be in town. 

Soon after Ardell and I made initial contact, she put me in touch with her cousin Christie, who was also a family history buff!  Christie had researched a large part of her grandfather Christen Jensen's family as well as her grandmother Kristine Pedersen's family.  Christie lives in one of the northern states, so we haven't had the chance to meet, but we emailed back and forth extensively!!!  In fact, all of the pictures I posted in the last post came from Christie.  She shared the family history research she'd completed for the Pedersen family, and I shared with her what I'd managed to find.  The irony was that, where she had holes, I had information.  And where I had holes, she had the information!  We had both assembled the same information, but had done so via differing methods....where I had done the vast majority (99%) of my research online, she had actually been working with someone in Denmark who was physically looking up the information for her.  And all of it that both of us had matched!

In the last year or so, I've fallen out of touch with Christie and Ardell, but have made a promise to myself that I will re-establish contact again.  I'm planning on being in Elk Horn for Julefest at the end of the month, so I'm hoping I can catch up with Ardell again.  I would love to spend more time with her asking what she remembers of her grandmother, and updating the descendants records...but, mostly, just spending some time with one of "the cousins".  :o)

But back to the trip to Elk Horn with my parents.  We arrived in Elk Horn earlier in the day and met up at the Genealogy Center on main street.  Christie told me that she had put together a book about her grandparents, and that there was a copy at the Genealogy Center there.  So, my parents and I were looking forward to finding it and spending some time looking through it!  :o)

After spending some time there and also making a trip out to the Danish museum (we always check out the Immigrant Wall of Honor to look for my great-grandparents' names...and I always forget to get a picture!!!), we stopped in the Danish Inn for lunch.  Ardell met us shortly for coffee. 

Probably the funniest thing was my dad asking me if I knew what she looked like.  I said, "No."  He said, "Does she know what you look like?"  I said, "No."  Then he said, "Then how will you know when she gets here?"  I said, "I'm guessing she'll be the one looking around for someone when she walks in the door."  My dad just shook his head.  haha

But that's what happened!  As soon as she entered, I knew she must be Ardell.  I walked over and greeted her, then walked back to  our table with her.  She and my dad talked about family for a long time, while I just sat and listened.  As it turned out, it was more of a reunion than a first meeting.  The Pedersen family used to have family reunions in Grand Island, Nebraska, and Ardell and my dad both remembered going!  They must have met before...as kids.  Too funny!

All in all, it was a fantastic day!  Cousins were reunited, stories were exchanged, and family was drawn together.  (And I went home with an almond pringle!  YUM!)

Ardell and my dad. 

(Those red suspenders he wears everywhere...they read "Great Dane" on each side!  Sigh.)

To be continued...

Cousins Uncovered

Finding Stine and her family in Elk Horn was a nice surprise!  Finding her and her husband’s obits in the archived newspaper clippings in the Genealogy Center was like finding hidden treasure!  The obits gave me the names of their children, and from there I found their children’s obits listing their children, Stine’s grandchildren.  What a find!

Stine and Christen had 3 boys:  Jens, William and Andrew.  Jens and Andrew eventually married and had children of their own.  William remained unmarried and is buried next to his parents in the Exira cemetery. Finding the names of Stine’s and Christen’s grandchildren was such a wonderful find!  I excitedly, and a little anxiously, wrote letters to 2 of the granddaughters whose names I found still listed in the Exira directory.  I thought of calling, but felt that writing was the least intrusive way of introducing myself.  And, in my letter, I included my telephone number and email address.  If they didn’t want to have any correspondence, I would not hear from them.  But I had my fingers crossed that I would hear from at least one of them.

A week went by and I heard nothing.  Then another week.  Then another week.  I was giving up hope, but trying to stay positive.  It was possible that, being farmers, they were just too busy to respond right away.   Another week went by, and then it happened.  I noticed I had a voicemail from a number I didn’t recognize!  Could this be it?  I hoped so!  So, with my fingers crossed, I listened to the voicemail and, yes, it was one of Stine’s granddaughters contacting me!

Ardell was one of Andrew’s daughters.  Her sister, Colleen, was the other granddaughter I sent a letter to.  I called Ardell back immediately and we talked for some time.  She, of course, was curious how I found her.  (I love telling people the “how”.  It seems so simple to me, but they always seem so amazed!)  :o)  Once we got past the initial questions, I told her what I knew about her grandparents, more specifically, her grandmother.  Throughout the conversation, I referred to her as Stine.  At a later point, Ardell asked me where I got the name “Stine”.  I told her that all of us had always heard that Great-Grandpa Jens had a sister named Stine who also lived in America.  She said she had never heard her grandmother referred to by that name, which made it an even more special name to me…obviously, it was Great-Grandpa’s nickname for his baby sister. 

Ardell also told me that her mother and my grandmother, Leona, kept in constant contact with one another through letters.  Who knew???  I certainly wasn’t aware that Grandma was still in contact with her cousins in Elk Horn!  Ardell said that, though the letters may have been sent with some time lapsing between, all of a sudden, the letters from Grandma stopped.  She said that her mother always wanted to know why she wasn’t hearing from Leona anymore.  Working out about the timeframe that Grandma quit writing put it about the time that we both thought…that Grandma Leona had passed away.  And, the rest of us not knowing that she was keeping in contact with her cousins, we would not have known to contact the Elk Horn cousins to pass along the sad news. 

The obvious next step was to get my parents to Elk Horn to reunite my dad with his cousins.

To be continued…

A Sister and a Destination

When I first began researching my grandmother's family tree, I had no idea where or how many cousins I would find.  I also had no idea that I would find more here in America!  I told my parents that I was going to start working on the family tree, and they told me that Great-Grandpa Jens had a sister who immigrated to America also.  All they knew was that her name was Stine.  No one knew when she came over, but it was the consensus that she settled somewhere around Elk Horn, IA as Jens and Johanne did.

So, the first thing I knew I needed to do was find out what siblings Jens had.  As I said in a previous post, I found he had 3 sisters: Karen Elline, Inger Marie Petrea and Ane Christine.  Of the 3, the most likely to be known as Stine would have been the youngest.  So, I began looking for her in the Emigration Archives at http://emiarch.dk.  Every once in a while, the search is easy and I find what I'm looking for almost immediately, but MOST of the time, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.  Spelling of names didn't seem to be something to be taken seriously.  :o)

I never did find her emigration registration information, but I did know that she would have arrived at Ellis Island, which became the US Port of Immigration on Jan. 1, 1892.  Even if she had sailed when she was only 16, she still would have been processed through that port rather than Castle Garden. 

It didn't take much time at all to find that she had departed Copenhagen on the Oscar II on November 19, 1902 and arrived at Ellis Island on Dec. 2, 1902.  That raised questions for me immediately!  First, what a bitterly cold and unpleasant time of year to be travelling via ship across the Atlantic to a foreign country that she was going to call home!  Can you just imagine how long that journey would have seemed?  Wow!  Second, the family lived in Pandrup, wayyyyyyy up north in Jutland.  What was involved in getting this young woman to Copenhagen?  I would love to know that story, but I'm afraid it's been lost forever.  The only way to answer would be speculate and make assumptions, which could prove to be logically sound but there is no way of knowing if they're accurate.  So, I'm just left wondering. 

The most interesting thing about Stine's entry on the passenger list is who she was going to in the USA.  It states "intended husband".  Wow!  Just imagine the questions that started swirling around my head then!  I wanted to know all there was to know about this "Chr. Jensen" in Marne, IA!  :o)

I did a little bit of research and discovered that he was much older than her, being in his 30s and she being only 19.  Then I wondered, was he widowed?  If he was her "intended husband", the families must have known one another in Denmark, right?  Or did someone who knew the family know him here in the States and arrange a marriage on behalf of the family?  So many questions!  Most of which, we will not know the answers.

So, I had successfully discovered my great-grandfather's sister, as well as where she lived and when she came to the US.  It made me happy to know that the family obviously kept in contact if 14 years could pass before her brother and his family joined her in Elk Horn!  :o)

Now that I knew where she was and who she married, my summer became a series of regular trips to Elk Horn, IA to the Genealogy Center, where access to old newspapers and local databases proved to connect me to Stine's descendants....who mostly all still live in the area!

Finding Christen and Stine's obituaries gave me the names of their children and grandchildren...along with locations.  The next thing to do was check the phone directory for addresses, write some letters, and keep my fingers crossed.

Found it!  Stine's emigration registration...

To be continued...

A Long Journey...

Sometime in August 1916, Jens Peder and Johanne Pedersen registered to emigrate to the United States and made preparations for the journey. And on August 24, 1916, the family set sail from Copenhagen aboard the USS United States. I can't imagine the emotions involved or preparing 6 children for that long of a journey!

During the conversation with cousin Gladys, she relayed stories about the journey that she heard from her mother, Emma. My dad's Aunt Emma would have been about 7 years old when the family made the journey across the Atlantic. Gladys told me that her mom remembered that the dining tables had a sort of "lip" around the outer edge to help keep the plates and utensils from sliding off as the ship moved. Emma also remembered her dad taking them above deck to get fresh air and keep them distracted and occupied.

We had always heard that Johanne was seasick during the journey, and, above all else, she was also pregnant with my grandmother! I always imagined how miserable that journey must have been for her! What none of us knew for years, though, was that it wasn't just the seasickness and nausea from pregnancy that would have been the most difficult part of the journey for her. As I had discovered in my research that she and Jens had another son, the realization of their journey to America took on a whole new dimension. Johanne left her home in Denmark knowing that she had not only just left behind her parents and sisters, but she had just left her eldest child behind and would very likely never see him again. I can imagine the seasickness and I can imagine the nausea from pregnancy. But I cannot imagine the agony of that!

Emma had passed along to her daughter, Gladys, that Jens was very worried about his wife during the voyage. I can only imagine! When they arrived at Ellis Island, the family was processed and "inspected" aboard ship. In July of that year, a fire damaged the Ellis Island buildings, including the Great Hall, where immigrants were processed. That may have proved to be to the family's benefit, as Johanne was probably very ill at this point and the inspectors may not have been so kind to them had they gone through the regular processing cycle.

The details thereafter of where they stayed or when they boarded a train bound for Iowa are not known. I recall hearing a story when I was younger that, having no knowledge of English, they almost missed the train they were supposed to board and nearly boarded the wrong train as a result.  If that's true, who knows where they would have ended up, or how they would have found their way to Elk Horn.  Regardless of that, they made their way to central Iowa and settled first in Harlan before finally making a home in Elk Horn. Jens worked as a blacksmith there. While in Harlan, they welcomed Leona Margot into their family, my grandmother. After moving to Elk Horn, they had Gladys Wanette, but lost her after only 3 months to pertussis (whooping cough). She is buried in an unmarked grave in the Elk Horn cemetery. A short year later, they welcomed another boy, Lyle Manville, and 3 years later, Norman Elvin.

Sometime after, the family moved to central Nebraska, where Jens set up another shop as a blacksmith. And that's where the family remained as a whole for even generations after. Ultimately, it was during this research, looking for the ship manifest that I finally found more information about Jens's sister, Stine, who had immigrated 12 years earlier. On the ship manifest, it lists Jens's brother-in-law, Chris Jensen, and his address. Now I knew where to look for Stine!

To be continued...

Jens Knudsen Pedersen - The Missing Sibling

In October 1902 in a town called Brødslev in Ingstrup parish, Jens and Johanne welcomed their first son into their family.  The have 6 more children after him, and in September 1916, they emigrated to America.

This piece of their family was a puzzle.  Jens Knudsen is not listed with the family on the 1911 or 1916 census records.  I would constantly come back to him, and search and search.  But I would never uncover anything.  Not only was I coming up blank in the Danish records, but it was also a name that my dad and his brother had never heard.  Jens Knudsen was their uncle.  It was a mystery.  Who was this boy?  Where did he disappear to?  And why had no one in the family ever heard of him?

My parents suggested I contact my dad's cousin, Gladys, and ask her if she knew anything of this other brother.  Gladys' mother was Emma, my grandmother's sister.  Emma would have been old enough to remember having an older brother.  So I called Gladys and told her I had been researching the family tree.  She asked what I had found, and I told her that I was hoping she could help solve a mystery.  She said she would try, but didn't know what help she could be.  I shared what I had found about this boy, Jens Knudsen.  She sighed and said, "Yes, he was the oldest boy.  Grandpa and Grandma called him Knud."  The puzzle began to take shape!

Gladys shared with me that Knud was mentally disabled, and that they put him in a special school/home.  She told me that they would bring him home on the weekends, but he would cry and cry that he "wanted to go home".  His siblings and parents missed him while he was away at the school all week, but he would be homesick when he stayed with them.  He didn't have any understanding that they were his family.  Gladys told me that when they made the decision to come to America, they did so with the knowledge that they would be leaving Knud behind.  That told me a number of things, most notably, that the decision to emigrate was for significant reasons, and it also told me that Knud was disabled enough that he would have not passed immigration restrictions to stay in the US.  As Gladys was sharing the story, and the realization of what it meant for my great-grandparents to leave their home began to sink in, I found myself in tears.

Also during this time, I began posting the Pedersen family tree on a site called My Heritage.  The site is set up so that, as you post entries on your family tree, it shows you matches to other trees...similar to what Ancestry.com does.  I was seeing a handful of matches to other trees, but nothing much closer than the late 1700's and early 1800's.  I was looking for the closest generation I could get, which would be the descendants of either of Jens' sisters or of Johanne's sisters.  Finally, I saw a significant number of matches on someone's family tree in Denmark, so I made contact.  Initially, we had to overcome the language barrier.  Jenny spoke very little English and I know next to no Danish.  Upon investigation into her tree, I worked out the common line.  Her great-grandmother, Ane Marie Jensen, and my dad's great-grandmother, Ane Catherine Jensen, were sisters!  Amazing!  I could only get us one generation closer than that!

Being as language was a barrier for communication, Jenny suggested that her son, Peter, could act as translator.  What we didn't realize at the time was that Facebook offers the option to "See Translation" on posts and comments by friends who write in another language.  We've been able to communicate directly that way, but, in the meantime, Peter and I have become penpal cousins.  Both of us were excited to "meet"!  Finally, a direct contact to family still in Denmark!

Making this contact proved to be not only beneficial for connecting with family still in the mother country, but finding more information about family.  Knowing someone who speaks Danish, can interpret the Danish records, and is also interested in genealogy was a HUGE bonus!  Jenny's help has been invaluable!

I didn't know how much Jenny could help in solving the puzzle of Knud, but I decided to enlist her help.  I emailed her the story, and shared what records I had already found.  I also shared with her the story Gladys told me.  She emailed me in reply and said that she knew immediately where to look for the records.

A couple of days later, she emailed me that she had found him on census records and sent me the information for finding them online.  She also said that she talked to someone in the Archives office about the institution where Knud lived.  This person was able to find his death record, and some information about the institution, which is now a museum.  It's within just a couple of km from where Jenny's husband grew up!  The person in the Archives office told Jenny that, being as Knud lived to be about 60, it was likely that there would be a picture of him at the museum.  Jenny told me that she was going to make a trip the following week and would send whatever information she could find.  That was a long week of waiting!

The following week, I received a message from her...and a picture!  The man working at the museum was elderly and actually remembered Knud!  In fact, he was the person who took the photo of him!  He told her to pass along to us that Knud was a quiet, pleasant and gentle person.  He loved horses, so he was put to work in the stables.  He also made the daily dairy trip to town for the institution.  I could not express to Jenny how much her trip meant to our entire family.  Finally, my dad's Uncle Knud would have his rightful place in the family.

To be continued...