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.