THE DANISH SISTERHOOD OF AMERICA

Finding your Roots in Denmark

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After many years of researching my genealogy in Denmark I had finally planned a trip to the many places where my family lived. I was lucky to have two friends with me who are members of the Danish Sisterhood, who were born in Denmark and of course speak Danish. Connie Schell, now a National Trustee, and Lone Paxton who was the EGC Secretary and has now passed away. In September of 2006, we flew to Hamburg Germany and then rented a car and drove to Denmark. We spent a wonderful two weeks in Denmark, driving from beautiful Odense, to Copenhagen, to Viborg to Skagen, Vejle, to Aabenraa. It was a wonderful experience for me, I had long searched for my Danish family, and now I had actually visited almost all the places where they lived.

Of course, doing the research was the hard part. I had spent many years pouring through records, looking at films of Parishes in Denmark. Asking Connie to translate many pages of old records, so I could get an idea of what I was looking at. After awhile, I recognized the words, and the different kinds of documents. That is very important in researching, you have to know what records to order, where to find them, then of course trying to make sense of them, unless you read Danish. Many of the old records are written in Gothic German script. At one point I attended a Genealogy fair, and one of the classes was reading the records in Gothic German. It was a short class, but the instructor looked at some of my copies of records, and he was able to help me zero in on one of the places mentioned in a Baptismal record. It was referred to as the Noble Manor Holm, and he asked me if I was from nobility? I laughed and said no, I think my relatives were farmers from Jutland! But apparently Holm was once part of Søgaard, a large estate which included many Parishes and many thousands of hectares (similar to acres) of land. This estate was owned by the Lord Adelfelt family. Holm was one of the properties, which was bought by my 4th Great Grandfather in 1759. My family owned it and ran it until around 1802. So it was referred to as Noble. This helped me quite a bit. I was on the internet looking for the Manor Holm, and finally after quite awhile of researching, I found the Manor Holm, outside of Kliplev Parish, in Southern Aabenraa.

So you see every little piece of information helps fit into the puzzle. Eventually (if you are lucky), you will put it all together. It takes patience, perseverance, time, some of the resources on the internet, and perhaps a little help from your friends.

So this new section on the web site is to try and help those who are trying to look for their roots. I have complied some valuable information and resources to give you a good start. Happy Hunting!

Carole Pierorazio
cpieroraziodss@aol.com