One Piano's journey

Have you wondered what the section on the Danish State Archives page titled Nummerbøger fra Hornung og Møller is?  It is the serial number register of the Hornung Møller piano company in Denmark.

I found a Hornung & Møller piano for sale in Salt Lake a few weeks ago.

I looked inside and found the serial number.

Then I was playing on the State Archives site for Denmark and found the Nummerbøger fra Hornung og Møller.  Naturally, I had to look up this piano that is now in Utah.

Hornung og Møller Nummerbøger 1919-1934 opslag 84

Unfortunately, it did not list who bought it originally.  It does say that it is a Rococo style and was built 9 Sep. 1930.

Then I found one in an auction.  It's serial number is 40410.

Hornung og Møller Nummerbøger 1934-1960 opslag 6

It was built 15 Dec. 1934 for Kirsten Free Hendriksen of Nørregade 50 in København.  It is also a Rococo style.  And of course since I had a name, I had to check the census.

1930 Folketælling København Nørregade 50 (Nørregade lige nr. opslag 547)

København Skifteprotokoller (Landsretten 1730-1862)

If you have ancestors in København, you should always check the probates.  When you search the Family History Library Catalog there are many options to choose from.  For this post I have chosen to discuss the Landsretten (High Court) records.  There are 1,836 films and it can be tricky to find the probate you're looking for.

I am going to give step by step instructions for finding the probate of Anna Sophie Holm Borch.  She died 11 Dec. 1846 in the Trinitatis parish.

Step 1:
Assuming you know the death date, you want to start with the register.  These registers are duplicated on microfiche but I find the microfilm version easier to navigate since they are broken down in smaller increments.

We start with film 46,197.  It covers 1846-1853.  When we view the film we find it actually contains several registers.

FHL Film 46,197 film title

We will use the A section of the register.  Names will be either listed according to first or last name.  So if you will want to check both.  The entries are not alphabetized so you will need to read the entire section.

 FHL Film 46,197

About half way down this page we find the entry for Anne Sophie Borch.

FHL Film 46,197

Step 2:

We see some numbers associated with this entry.  5/873 and 5: 533.  What do they mean?  When we go to the films associated with 1846-1847 there are several options.  Films 47,616-47,867.  That's 52 films for the two years we need to look at.  There are numerous record types:

1. Forseglingsprotokol (Under the seal of the court)
2. Registreringsprotokol (Registration)
3. Behandlingsprotokol (Handling)
4. Gældsbog (Debt book)
5. Decisionsprotokol (Decisions)
6. Repartitionsprotokol (Distributions)
7. Kvitteringsbog (Acknowledgements)
8. Korrespondanceprotokol (Correspondance)
9. Erklæringsprotokol (Declarations)
10. Hovedbog (Ledger)
11. Dokumenter til ordinære Boer (Documents)

We start with the first type. When we look at the first film we see the film title includes classes 1-4.  When we go to film 47,617 we see the title:

FHL Film 47,617

We notice in the register that 5 is part of both references 5/873 and 5: 533.  This film looks promising.

On page 533 of this register we find:

 FHL Film 47,617

So 5:533 refers to the Klasse and 5/873 refers to the actual number of the probate.  I do not know if the other records are indexed.  I will have to play with them on my next trip to the Library.

Registre til Københavns kirkebøger

Here is a register for København births.
http://danbbs.dk/~stst/kbh_kbg_reg/
It is not exhaustive but it is a great place to check.  The entries are categorized based on the father's last name as it was listed and extracted.  I opened the B section and did a control F for "Hans M"  I found the following:

I can now go to the Vor Frue church books and verify this information.

So you think you can forget about using the Microfilms.....

The Danish Archives have done the world a great service by making the Danish Church Records available through www.arkivalieronline.dk or www.sa.dk/ao.

I have been helping a patron with a grandfather that was born to unwed parents (uækte).  Here is the parents information from the Danish Archives website.

1817-1836 Gerlev (Frederiksborg) opslag 26

The information about the father is pretty vague and the image has faded.

Here is the entry for our guy but taken from the Microfilm.

FHL Film 48535 Gerlev, Frederiksborg

Here we see the father's name much more clearly, his occupation and where he is from.  We can also see that this is not the same entry filmed two different times.  They are two different records for the same area.

So don't forget about the microfilm.  They're still a great tool to have.

How do I know if I have the right Ole Olsen? - Using Norwegian probate records

We all have those ancestors who's name is super common.  It can be very easy to start up the wrong family tree if you're not careful.  I recently helped a patron move to the next generation beyond everybody's common ancestor, Ole Olsen.

In Hof, Hedmark, Norway we find the following birth record for Regine "Rika" Olsdatter.  

Hedmark fylke, Hof, Ministerialbok nr. 6 (1822-1841), Fødte og døpte 1830, side 244-245.

We see that she is born in Eig to Ole Olsen and Karen Pedersdatter.  Since this is Norway, we should be off to the Bygdebøker for Hof.  Right?  Well, it's not that simple.  Hof (in Hedmark) was one of those "super" parishes that became several different parishes.  In 1848 Våler and Åsnes were split out of Hof.  So now there are three sets of Bygdebøker we need to look at.

In Våler Bygdebok, we find Vestre and Østre Eid.  (Eig is an old spelling of Eid.)  We don't know which one to look at so you have to look at both.  As luck would have it, this particular Bygdebok is an older one and is very focused on the property transactions.  Compared to some others, there is very little details on the families.

Now, back to the church records to find more kids.  We find three other children:  Cornelius, Ole, and Pernille Emilie.

Cornelius Olsen born 19 May 1828 in Østre Eig.
Hedmark fylke, Hof, Ministerialbok nr. 6 (1822-1841), Fødte og døpte 1830, side 180-181.

Ole Olsen born 19 May 1833 in Eid Østre.
Hedmark fylke, Hof, Ministerialbok nr. 6 (1822-1841), Fødte og døpte 1830, side 322-323.

Pernille Emilie Olsdatter born 24 Apr 1836 in Østre Eig
Hedmark fylke, Hof, Ministerialbok nr. 6 (1822-1841), Fødte og døpte 1830, side 426-427.

We see the parents are married when Cornelius is born (1828).  So now we look at the marriage records for Hof beginning with Cornelius's baptism date and working backward.  We are looking for an Ole Olsen that marries a Karen Pedersdatter.  If one of them has a connection to Eid, then we can almost be sure we have the correct couple.

We work backward and we do find an Ole Olsen marrying a Karen Pedersdatter but there is no connection to Eid.  To make things even murkier, the farms in the marriage record are both in what would become Åsnes.  Here is the marriage record:

17 Apr. 1827
Hedmark fylke, Hof, Ministerialbok nr. 6 (1822-1841), Fødte og døpte 1830, side 604-605.

The farms listed are Udnæset (Utneset) and Trongaard (Trondgården).  The fathers of the bridal pair are listed, Ole Audensen and Peder Bergersen.  We can check the Bygdebøker for Åsnes and see what we can find.  We find both the bride and groom as children.  It says nothing about what happened to them.

Most Norwegian probates have been indexed.  Several years ago, a card index was created for most probate records.  They were organized by farm and contain information about the family.  So let's look and see if there is a record for Ole Audensen.  From the Bygdebok we find he died in 1845.  We find his probate card.

Hedmark fylke, Solør og Odalen sorenskriveri Skiftekort side 2156

There it is.  Ole Olsen from Utneset is the same as the Ole Olsen in Eid.

We have used the probates to prove that the Ole Olsen in the marriage record is the Ole Olsen who is the father of Regine.

Best Swedish Gazetteer on the internet

http://www.gis.scb.se/atlas/RikIndAtlas1992/index_en.htm

I don't know how long the above link will work.  It is a link to the "Atlas of Regional Divisions in Sweden, 1992"

It has very good maps for each Län that show neighboring parishes.

Hallands Län

This is an example of one of my counties.

Another great spot for Swedish places is:

http://www2.sofi.se/SOFIU/topo1951/_cdweb/index.htm

You need to know the Län (county) but it will help you with place names.

Swedish Court Records

Recently, I attended a Swedish Research Series at the Family History Library in Salt Lake.  One of the classes taught was on Swedish Court Records  The class was "Finding your Family in the Court Records of Sweden, part 1 Domböcker, Småprotokoller"  by Geoffrey Fröberg Morris.  (You can check out his website here:  https://sites.google.com/site/gfrobergmorrisswedish/ .)

Some of the things I learned were:  

1. Swedish Court records offer the best chance for finding the name of a father when the child is born to an unwed mother (oäkta).
2. You should scroll all the way through the book before you really start searching.
3. There is a list of persons fined that acts as an index for the Domböcker (Court Minutes)

With this information I set out to see what I could find.  I first found a court case involving my own grandmother but I'm going to share a different success story.

A patron at the BYU Family History library brought me the following problem:  Her grandfather, Nils Gustav Olsson was born to an unwed mother, Maria Christina Sjöberg.

(Äsphult Kyrkoböcher 1755-1832 page 273 from Arkiv Digital)

Next I went to the 1816 Domböcher (Court Minutes) (FHL Film 141519) , I went to the Saköreslängder (list of persons fined) and found the following:

(Gerds Härad Dombok 1816, FHL film 141519)

From this entry we see we need to look at case 91.

Even though the father is only mentioned as a man from Äsphult, we know where he's from.  The patron's family history/tradition gives the name of Ole Jeppeson.

Next we turn to the Husförhörslänger (Clerical Surveys/Household Examinations) for Äsphult.  After reviewing them, we can only find one Ola Jeppsson in Äsphult.  

(Äsphult Husförhörslänger 1813-1830 page 129, Arkiv Digital)

Now we can go searching for Ola Jeppsson!!!

See how much fun you can have with court records?