The Peter M. Petersen Family

Our Danish Roots

by Charles G. Petersen

Peder Pedersen was the third child and second son of Søren (pronounced Surn) Pedersen Have and Nielsine Jensdatter. Søren and Nielsine were married on April 18th in 1866 in Skarum near Alsted in Northern Mors. Søren Pedersen Have's name at birth was just Søren Pedersen; sometime later the Have (pronounced Hay-vuh and means garden) was added and some but not all of his children have Have as their last name. The Have name comes from Søren's maternal grandfather who in turn got it from his father.
sen-datter
It was a fairly common practice for both men and women in Denmark in those days to use their father's first name as their last name adding `sen' for the son or `datter' (pronounced dah-ter) for the daughter. As you might guess, Nielsine's (pronounced Neal-seen-uh) father's first name was Jens. Why, you might ask, wasn't Peder Pedersen's last name Sørensen instead of Pedersen? I don't know except to say that they didn't always follow the pattern and that there was some pressure from the government starting about that time to stop the sen-datter practice. It would appear that Peder was named after a friend of Søren and Nielsine for the name Peder Pedersen appears as a witness to the baptism of their first child, Ane Kirstine (pronounced An-uh Keer-steen-uh).
Nandrup
Søren was born on April 16th in 1842 in Nandrup near Flade (Fla- thuh, with Fla like in flat,) which is in the northeastern part of the island of Mors. Flade is close to Alsted where Nielsine was born to Jens Nørgård Sørensen and Ane Margarethe Pedersdatter on March 11th also in 1842.
Redsted
Sometime between August of 1866 and July of 1868, Søren and Nielsine moved from Skarum near Alsted in northeastern Mors where they were farming, probably with her father, to Redsted in the very southern part of Mors where they had their own farm.

Their firstborn and eldest daughter, Ane Kristine, named after her paternal grandmother, was confirmed in the church in Redsted on October 30, 1880, by Pastor Thiberg. Ten years later, on December 30, 1890, she married Peder Melsen Kjær from the village Ginnerup, in Heltborg parish Thisted Amt. Heltborg is located due west of Redsted, just across the Lim Fjord.

The next two children, Jens (named after his maternal grandfather) and Peder (named after his paternal grandfather), immigrated to America in 1889 and 1891 respectively.

Their fourth child and third son, Anton Pedersen Have, survived but 4 days and died on September 24, 1871. Actually, Anton was a twin, but his twin brother was still born and was not given a name. Their fifth child, another son, Ardreas, married Maren Kristen Kristensen from nearby Hvidbjerg (pronounced veet-bee-air, and means white hill) on January 21, 1896. In 1901, they we living in Redsted and had a 3 year old daughter named Sørvine Nielsine Petersen Have.

The second daughter, Ane Margarethe, married Peder Christian Pedersen of Vejerslev (Vie-er-slave) on November 24, 1896. They had eight children over a ten year period and many of the children's names (Nielsine, Søren, Martin, Thorvald, and Alma) bear a striking resemblance to those of Peter and Cecelia. There must have been a lot of correspondence back and forth between them.

The fourth daughter, Mariane, married Søren Peder Sørensen of nearby Vester Assels on June 13, 1902 in the Redsted church. The fifth son, Martinus, lived only twelve years and died on September 4, 1892 in Redsted.

Census records show that Søren and Nielsine were living in Redsted at least through 1906. In 1901 their youngest (11) son, Christian was the only child still living at home. The 1906 records show that their youngest (22) daughter, Sørvine and Christian were both living at home.

Sometime between 1906 and 1909, Søren and Nielsine moved from Redsted to Marie Lyst Mark near Nykøbing, where Søren died on July 17, 1909. postcard

The house
The following picture was on a postcard sent to her son, Peter, in the USA. The two other women in the picture, besides Nielsine (left), are her two youngest daughters, Sørvine Dusine (Sine) and Mariane (right). The young child is Mariane's daughter, Alfrida Margarthe, the product of her marriage to Søren Peder Sørensen of nearby Vester Assels. They were married in the church in Redsted on June 13, 1902.
The card
The text from the card is writing in Danish. What is shown beside it is a translation of the card writing into modern-day English. The card is dated May 5, 1910 and Nielsine apparently did not know that her son had been killed by lightning the previous year. She continued to live in or near Nykøbing until her death on February 12, 1930, just 5 weeks short of her 88th birthday.