Den kgl. Fødsels- og Plejestiftelse København, København, Denmark Genealogy

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History
Fødselsstiftelsen was created in 1750 as an institution where an unwed woman could give birth without giving her name or the father’s name to the authorities. Here she had the opportunity to give birth anonymously and to have free services. She could also give the child over to their care. Despite the promised anonymity, after 1805 in many cases there is information about the mother’s identity in the institution’s archives, although the father is seldom identified.

The institution has had three functions. The woman had help with the birth while the midwives and medical students received training. In the foster division the children were nursed until they were turned over to the fostering division. From there they were assigned to foster parents or their own mother with monetary assistance weekly.

Many family researchers have found an ancestor in one of the Fødselsstiftelsen’s church books and found that the mother’s name is not given. Only the child’s name with birth and christening information, and the record number for both the child and the mother were shown. These numbers refer to the institutions main record for those births. In the main record it may include information about the child being sent for foster care under supervision. If this is the case there would be a reference to that record where information is given about the person or persons who took the child into foster care.

After a change in the law in 1812, the child was most often given to the mother for foster care. So the “Udsætter” record became the most important source for identifying the mother. The National Archives (Riksarkivet) has these records up to 1861. After this time the records must be searched at the Rigshospital.

In the period 1805-1815 it is often possible to supplement the information from the “udsætter” records with the entries in the nursing records. Many of the poorest mothers transferred from the birthing division to the nursing division where they took care of their own child as well as other infants.

When one seeks information about unwed mothers, who had given birth at Fødselsstiftelsen, one must be prepared to find that it is impossible to find the information. The mother had the right to anomynity and even the institution had no record of who she was. Practically speaking, for all births in 1750 and up into the 1800s nothing was written to identify the parents.

Link to the online records

Place Names
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Collections
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