ANCESTOR CHURCHES AND FRIENDS

One of the unique things about living in Denmark is that we can actually go find the places where our ancestors attended church.  The churches were called parishes and almost every village had one. These remarkable buildings, cherished by the locals, are well-tended and preserved at great expense today.  And, generally stay open so you can wander around inside.  In order to find your church, you must know the county and the town of your ancestor.  In the states, records are kept in the counties, so the name of your county is all you need.  Just knowing a county name won't help you here,  and I'll show you why.

This is a map of Denmark and all the counties.  Look for Maribo, bottom right.  My Christensen line came from this county.  (Københavns on the far right is where Copenhagen sits.)

Map of Denmark

Below is a detailed map of Maribo County and all its little parishes.  Yes.  There are 109 and yes, most of them have their own parish church with their own records.   You will notice Stokkemarke - the home parish of some of my Christensen ancestors.

Maribo County with Stokkemarke Parish marked green

So here is the good news and the bad news:    If you know the name of the Parish and the county of your ancestors, you are in business, because their church records are marvelous and date back into the 1600's.  The bad news is that if you have a county where an ancestor lived, but don't know the name of the parish, it's almost impossible to research 109 parishes hoping to get lucky and find your people. Stab in the dark, since most records are not indexed.  Families didn't move around too much, so once you find them, you can do quite a lot of research.  Most parishes have on-line images of their original church books.  No index.  (The trick is reading the old Danish script.) 

So, while friends Doug and Claudia Larsen were visiting (we had so much fun!), we decided to take a drive and find Doug's and our ancestral churches.  We were actually close enough to find both in a day.  Below is a picture of the Stokkemarke Church, parish of the first Christensens to come to America.  

Stokemarke Kirke

Stokkemarke Kirke Cemetery

The picture above is the grounds - actually a graveyard surrounding the church.  Beautiful, manicured graves sites - often bordered with clipped hedges, are found outside literally every church in Denmark.   You will not find your ancestor's graves here though, because the old graves were removed long ago.  In Denmark, you  pay a grave fee and have to help with the upkeep to maintain the site, and over the years, neglected graves were given to someone else. Sometimes you see old, removed  headstones lined up along the fence.  You rarely find a grave dated earlier than the late 1800's, even though the churches are much older.

Arriving and Departing a Town.  Efficient.

Ancestral church of the Larsen family

Both churches were unfortunately closed, but we are nothing if not resourceful.  Doug had a selfie-stick.  I wish I had taken a picture of him window-peeking with his camera.

Doug and Claudia were here for about 10 days, so had a lot of time to take in all the sites and not be too rushed.  We escorted them to a few things and they did a lot on their own.  They got pretty good at figuring out their route amid the myriad of confusing streets here. Claudia is a natural navigator. Literally has a map in her head.

Canal Boat Tour.  They had absolutely fabulous weather while here.  The best weather of the entire summer.
Nary a drop of rain.  No wind.  No chilly humidity. 

Danish Pastry.  A must-try.  In the parking lot of the national museum, Frederiksberg Castle.

We had plenty of time with them to visit a Frilandmuseet.  There are several of these open-air museums in Denmark.  The one in Lyngby contains virtually every kind of Danish country dwelling imaginable.  The buildings (over 100) have been relocated to the museum from all over Denmark and are examples of rural architecture from cottages to grand manor houses, furnished and decorated in keeping with the period in which they were built.  It takes a full day to see it all because they are arranged into 40 groups with lots of walking in between.

You can see everything from windmills to fishermen's cottages to manor houses.

This architectural style is called half-timbered.  You see it all over Denmark.  Note the thatched roof.  Thatched roofs are still very common in the rural areas.
I think it is a law that these must be preserved - if you have one you do not replace it  with tile.

One of the older dwellings.  They arranged their farm buildings into a square-shape with cobble-stoned courtyards, often with a well in the center.  The animals and farm equipment were kept inside in attached buildings.  Handy for the long, cold winters.  Kitchens had huge stone ovens, but not much work space.

A room for lace work.  You can see the bobbins on the pillows.  The glass balls were arranged around the room to catch the candle-light and make the room brighter.  I cannot imagine doing hand work in these dark little rooms in the winter!

Claudia and I trooped through most of the houses.  The men kept disappearing to find the nearest bench or stone wall.

We poked around and they found parking spots.

We also had a visit from the Aagards - some temple friends touring Scandinavia.  It was wonderful to see them and the Larsens!  We hope they will look back with fond memories from this beautiful land. We loved sharing Denmark with them.

MORE VISITORS FROM HOME

We were so pleased when Jordan and Emily decided at almost the last minute to come visit.  Airline prices dipped suddenly and they snapped up tickets.  And Shayna and Adeline (granddaughter, yeah!!!) were able to coordinate with Jor and decided to come too. Schedules matched, timing matched and with a few key strokes on the internet all was arranged.    Our visitors  had planned a tricky itinerary which involved Utahans and Texans meeting in New York,

Just a little tired!

sharing a 7 hour lay-over, then flying to Copenhagen via  Dublin, Ireland (overnight stay plus tour).   Complicated, but do-able on a normal day.  But normal flew out the window when  the Delta hub went down and people and planes all over the world were backed up like a Los Angeles freeway on a Friday.  Just hours before departure time.  Could things  be worse?  Well, yes they could. Shayna discovered the night before leaving that Addie's passport had expired.  To make a long story short, miracles occurred.  Did you know that if you can find some place open to take your passport picture in the dead of night,  (the hardest part) you can obtain a passport in person in Dallas?   In hours?  And Jordan was actually able to get on an earlier flight;  Shayna a later one, and both ended up in New York in time to catch their flight to Ireland.  All was good.  Hurrahs.  Just one last catch:  most of Shayna's luggage booked a different trip.  A 5-day trip.  And not to Denmark.  We adjusted.

They wanted to see it all, so we got right to work!  The first day they fell in love with Danish hot dogs.  They are called pølser and you get the best ones at little wagons on the street.  Just pick your sausage, add dried onions, pickled onions, relish, mustard, ketchup and remoulade (a peculiar Danish condiment) and tuck in.  Served on a napkin.  Kind of sloppy, but yummy.

This picture was actually taken by Kendell on a later visit, but you get the idea.  Kendell and Ruth fell in love with a different Danish dish.  Future post.

We tried to show each set of visitors a little something different.  On a trip down the coast to Stevn´s Klint, we detoured and found an unusual Danish church.  I love the churches in Denmark.  Each one is unique on the inside, but most are generally white-washed or red brick on the outside.  But this one was unusual:  yellow- that unique mustard color found on old houses here.

This wonderful church and cemetery was found in Gammel Havdrup.

Every churchyard has a cemetery, manicured and lovely.

Seeing and playing in the freezing Baltic Seat at the Klint (cliff) is always a big hit!

Lovely harbor village, Rødvig

On our way back, we found a cute little couple hitch-hiking.  Or rather, they found us.  They had docked a boat, then walked 12 km along the coast to Stevn's Klint and needed a ride back to their boat. Their crew mates were getting worried.  Since we had a van, we stuffed them in with us.  As a result, we found a cute little fishing village, toured the harbor, and climbed aboard our new friends' sailing boat.  What a way to travel Europe!  They were from Germany and were crusing the coast.

This little cutie came all the way with her mom.  We loved having her and introducing her to her ancestor's homeland.

We saw all the castles and  took bunches of pictures.  Jor arrived with a  selfie-stick and it worked wonders, but you can't use them inside the museums.  Museum people are afraid you will stumble into  prized artifacts and break them.  One does tend to get a little silly  with selfies.

Adeline and Grandpa at Frederiksberg Slot garden.

Christiansborg palace where the current Queen holds receptions - hence the cute shoe covers.  These relatively new tapestries tell the whole history of Denmark.  Fabulous.

Another stop was Christiansborg .  I had never been to this one.  This is where the parliament meets currently, and formal receptions are held in majestic rooms. 

Jordan answering the phone in the copper-potted kitchen.  The butler wanted the soup brought up NOW!
And the royal horses having baths.

You can also visit the kitchens (not in use now, but full of copper pots.  Oh, the copper!)  and the stables,  Emily's favorite part.  The horses get the royal treatment and live in marble stalls.  Yeah.

Besides the Fish Kiss Spa, Adeline and the crew couldn't wait to get to Tivoli.  Tivoli is a very compact amusement park with beautiful flower gardens and restaurants and rides.  One of the rides pulls so many G's that you can't scream.  Of course they tried it.  But, Shayna freaked out most on the sky swings.   Grandpa and I just held the popcorn and said, "Have at it."

Even super moms and dads need a break.  So glad they could come and have a little vacation.

One evening this crew joined us for the missionary couples monthly dinner at the Knudsens.  You know, the place where we had kangaroo.  They met our office friends and mission friends and had an authentic Danish meal crowded  in a tiny Danish apartment.   Another evening we went to the temple where Adeline and Jordan did baptisms for the dead.  Addie and Jor were able to perform baptisms for some of our ancestors born here in the 1800's.  Our family also attended the branch where we proudly introduced them to as many as possible.

Thank goodness the Ortman clothes showed up in time for church.

After sacrament meeting we had a special experience with our family.  We drove to the mission office where Elder Buxton was set apart as the interim Mission President by Elder Sabin (from the Area Presidency in Germany)  and President O'Bryant.  After that,  President O'Bryant was given a priesthood blessing since he was leaving within a few days to go to Salt Lake for a heart procedure.  It was wonderful to see my two men worthy to stand in and assist.  What a great blessing for all of us.

And, we got the following announcement a month early:

We'll be home in time for the big event!!!!  So excited.  It was hard to see our visitors go, but school was starting soon.  Love having family visit and sharing Denmark with them!