Danish Research: Tips for Beginners

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= Basics of Research =

Decide What You Want to Learn
Begin with a goal in mind. You may want to find an ancestor's parents, birth date, or death date. Decide on a specific goal.

Know What You Know
You cannot simply say, "I'm going to find my great-great-great-grandfather," and expect to meet with any success. You have to have some clues to get you started. You may have many clues that you don't even recognize. Most of these clues will come from previous generations of ancestors.

Step Backward before Stepping Forward
Remember that we are building family "trees" here. You cannot hang apples on a tree that has no branches. Look at the associated information to the problem. The best clues for any ancestor are usually found by looking at their immediate family members. For example: If your goal is to find the parents of an individual (who is one of the end of lines on your Pedigree Chart), take the time to look at all the associated clues to the known individual. Do you know the name of a child (learn about the Danish Naming Laws)? In Denmark, a child's surname frequently gives a clue about the father's given name. Do you know where a child was born? This means you also know where the child's parents lived. It’s a process of understanding the known before moving to the unknown. If you gather everything you know about that individual, and your information is still very sketchy (meaning you really don’t know much) you should probably move your goal: research the previous generation more thoroughly until you know enough to build on.

Understand Where You Have Checked
Document everything you do. If you look through a collection of records and find nothing--document it so you don't look through them again! If you do find a record, make sure to record everything about the record so you can easily locate the record again, if needed. Sometimes there will be information on the record which seems insignificant at one time, but will prove invaluable at another time. Evaluate what you have already checked. This is a lot easier if you have documented your sources during your research activities.

= Danish Research Basics =

Understand the Danish Naming Tradition
Surnames were not always used in Denmark. When Danish law finally required surnames to be used, most of the people used patronyms as surnames. A patronym is formed by taking the father's name and adding the suffix -sen (which means son in Danish) or -datter (which means daughter in Danish). For example, a man named Hans Pedersen would be the son of a man named Peder. Also our Hans Pedersen would have sons surnamed "Hansen" and daughters surnamed "Hansdatter".

Denmark also did not use "married" names until almost the 20th century. A woman kept her maiden surname throughout her life. It is also helpful to understand that daughters were less strict about the use of their surname--a daughter with the surname Hansdatter can sometimes jump back and forth between Hansdatter and Hansen.