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.