Need help with a Danish baptism record

Question

Could somebody please help with the transcription and translation of the baptism record of Merret Pedersdatter? The link to the record at the Danish Archives is here and she is the third entry down:

https://www.sa.dk/ao-soegesider/en/billedviser?bsid=202501#202501,38382772

I am particularly interested in who her parents are. Also, I entered her LNAB as "Pedersdatter" but can see on this baptism record it is "Pedersen". Which one is correct and should I change it?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Old fashioned naming protocol for some countries have the family with different ending for sons and daughters. This might b the case here

Peders datter

Peders sen

Comments

Yes, it's called patronymics.

The thing with this record is that Merret actually IS Merret Pedersen in her own baptism record, so that should be her LNAB.

I see that there is a Mette Cathrine Nielsen at the bottom of the page, so this parish seems to have made the transition to unisex -sen names for children. (You could look for more girls on the surrounding pages).

Merret's mother is, however, still Kirsten Lauritzdatter.

Sorry, But I cannot read the name of Merret's father very well.

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Thank you for confirming this. I will change the LNAB to Pedersen as that is the name in the baptism record.

Answer 2

The other persons baptized on this page all have family names added to their first names. This means Merret's last name would be Pederssen. It is a male patronym, but seems like they used frozen patronyms quite early in this area.

Father seems to be Johann Petrus, but the rest is not quite readable for me.

Comments

Thank you Juha. This is the first instance I have found of a frozen patronym in this era so was a bit confused.

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Yes, I agree it's early. What Mary writes below about Slesvig-Holstein being different may be the reason.

Answer 3

Though the hand is somewhat difficult to read, I am pretty sure father's name is Johann Peter Nielsen.

Comments

Thank you Gilbert, I appreciate how difficult that was to read. I will do some searching for Johann Peter Nielsen and Kirsten Lauritzdatter and see what I can find.

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I agree the father's name is Johann Peter Neilsen.  I can't read much of the mother's name but part of it seems to be some feminine form of Lauritz. The rest of her name looks to be more German than Danish which is not surprising as the mix of Germans and Danes in the area was a big part of the long running dispute over whether Slesvig-Holsten should be part of the German duchies or Denmark.

This is Stepping Sogn in Nørre Tyrstrup Herred very near the border between Slesvig-Holsten and the rest of Denmark..  There was a royal decree on adopting slaegtsnavn in this area in 1771 and this area actually appears to have followed it.  See the Project Denmark document on naming.

I would retag this posting adding tags for Sleswig-Holstein and German Roots and see if someone with better German skills can pull some more out of it.

You might also try looking at the same page on Danish Family Search.  Their viewer is different and playing around with contrast and brightness on the different viewers can sometimes pull out stuff on one that you can't pull out from the other.

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Thanks, Mary, for observing the geography and explaining about Slesvig-Holstein. But I don't see any German on the page. There's "döbt i kirken" and "huusmanden" and "faddrer" and other typically Danish terms.

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Thank you Mary and Eva. I will definitely read up on the history of Slesvig-Holstein. It certainly explains the naming of this family.

I have spent the afternoon manually going through the parish register online and found three other siblings of Merret. Her parents definitely are Johann Peder Nielsen and Kirsten Lauritzdatter. I even managed to find their marriage record and the names of their parents on it.

The marriage record at family search:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FK9N-3GW

The marriage record in the Danish Archives Hovedministerialbog, second from the bottom:

https://www.sa.dk/ao-soegesider/en/billedviser?bsid=202501#202501,38382885

The marriage record in the Danish Archives Kontraministerialbog, the last entry on the second page:

https://www.sa.dk/ao-soegesider/en/billedviser?bsid=202492#202492,38381294

Johann's father is recorded as Niels Pedersen Rings. Is Rings a surname/ place name/ farm name? I'm not sure how to enter his surname on WikiTree.

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Johann's father's name is Niels Pedersen Ring. The "s" is genitiv, meaning Niels Pedersen Ring's legitimate son (ægtefødte søn).

Ring is a Danish surname with 479 people in 2018 see https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/befolkning-og-valg/navne/HvorMange#

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Eva,

You are right that there is no German language on the page.  But the use of the spelling Johann is an indication of German influence.  The general drift of the name patterns also looks more German than Danish to me although there are clearly still Danish aspects to some parts of the names.\

Mary

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Thank you Ole and Mary. I will keep in mind when I am researching this line that there may be some German influence. I am very grateful to everybody for helping me to break through this brick wall in just two days.

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Mary,

Just some comments:

Stepping was in 1810 part of Tyrstrup Herred After the war in 1864 the 8 northern parishes formed Nørre Tyrstrup Herred and became part of Denmark. The 7 southern parishes formed Sønder Tyrstrup Herred and became part of Germany. Stepping Parish is among the 7 southern parishes and after 1920 again part of Denmark.

Slesvig and Holsten were not German duchies! Until 1864 they formed their own duchies -the Duchy of Schleswig and the Duchy of Holstein. Slesvig under Danish jurisdiction and Holsten under jurisdiction of the German-Roman Empire. Since 1920 the northern part of Slesvig is Danish and the southern part and Holsten are German.