Through my father's grandmother, one line of my family runs back to two German families who walked to Jutland around 1760 and stayed. This page follows them down to my great-grandparents.
They are the Franks, from Eschelbach in the Kraichgau, and the Dürrs, from the Darmstadt area. Both settled on Alheden, and around 1791 Michael Frank married Cathrine Barbara Dürr. The facts below come from church books, censuses, the colony's own records and a local history of Frederiks parish, and each one notes where it comes from.
The Franks of Eschelbach
Johann Jeremias Thomas Frank
My fifth great-grandfather
Born
11 December 1713, Eschelbach
Married
Eva Magdalena Benz, 18 April 1741, Eschelbach
In Denmark
Plot and house no. 20 in Frederikshede (Havredal)
Died
About 1779
Johann Jeremias was 46 when he left for Denmark with his wife and children. Eschelbach, now part of Sinsheim south-east of Heidelberg, then belonged to the Electorate of Mainz. Henrik Frank believes the family reached Fredericia with the columns of 1–2 May 1760, where the name is listed as Johann Thomas Frank.
The colony administration kept a close eye on its settlers, and Johann Jeremias turns up again and again in its records. He was given a plot and a whole house in Frederikshede, as Havredal was officially called, and a tenancy letter in both German and Danish. He was put on a list of colonists "of reasonably good hope", and one of the yearly reports sums him up in four words: en god gammel bonde, a good old farmer.
He died around 1779. Family notes place his death at Aarestrup, where five farms from crowded Havredal moved around 1778, and where a Georg Frank was living before 1801.
Eva Magdalena Benz
My fifth great-grandmother
Born
12 November 1721, probably Tairnbach
Died
About 1787
Eva Magdalena was 38 when the family set out. Her birthplace is written "Thaimbach" in one transcription and her parents' marriage place "Thairnbach" in another. Both are most likely Tairnbach, Eschelbach's neighbouring village, which was spelled Thairnbach in older documents.
Johann Michael Frank
My fourth great-grandfather
Born
19 December 1756, Eschelbach
Farmer
Farm no. 2 in Ulvedal, then in Grønhøj from 1787
Office
Churchwarden in Grønhøj
Married
Cathrine Barbara Dürr, about 1791
Died
6 January 1833, Frederiks parish
Michael, as he was known in Denmark, was three when his family came, so Alheden was the only home he could remember. He appears in the 1787 census of Frederiks parish. That same year he swapped farms with Henrik Maul of Grønhøj, giving up farm no. 2 in Ulvedal.
In 1801 he was still a farmer and churchwarden, a position of trust in the colonists' own church. After that things went badly for him, and he lost the farm, 38 hectares of heath land. He died in 1833, aged 76.
The Dürrs
According to Valdemar Andersen's history of Frederiks parish, the Dürr colonist was Peter Dürr, from Darmstadt, and his wife was Apolonia Schmuck, born in 1720. By 1776 a son had taken over their farm. Andersen names a son Sigmund, born 1754, and daughters Anna Cathrine, born 1756, who married Jacob Brauner of Trehuse, and Cathrine Barbara, born 1765, who married Michael Frank of Grønhøj.
Cathrine Barbara Dürr
My fourth great-grandmother
Born
1765 or about 1769, on Alheden
Married
Michael Frank, about 1791
Died
4 April 1815, Frederiks parish, buried 9 April
Cathrine Barbara was born in Denmark, the first in this line who was. Who her parents were depends on the source. Andersen makes her Peter Dürr's daughter, born in 1765. Family trees make her his granddaughter, a daughter of his son Johan Jacob Dürr and Anna Cathrine Märcher, born about 1769. The Frederiks parish church books that can be read today only begin in 1814, which makes the question hard to settle. Either way, she was a child of the colony.
Her marriage to Michael Frank around 1791 joined the two colonist families. She died in 1815.
Johan Jacob Dürr and Anna Cathrine Märcher
Peter Dürr's son and daughter-in-law
Johan Jacob
Born 9 June 1749, Gronau. Farmer at Over Frederiksmose. Died 29 May 1816, buried 3 June 1816 at Thorning.
Anna Cathrine
Born 1745, recorded as Bodigheim. Died 25 April 1827 at Gammel Frederiksmose, buried 29 April 1827 at Thorning.
Johan Jacob was a boy of about ten when the colonists set out. By the end of his life he farmed at Over Frederiksmose, part of the small colony at Gråmose south of Havredal. His wife Anna Cathrine's parents had married in 1743 at Bofsheim, close to Bödigheim near Buchen in the Odenwald, which is the most likely meaning of "Bodigheim".
Their burial records show how far the colonists' children had come in half a century. In 1816 the parish clerk wrote him down as Jacob Pedersen Döhr, Jacob, son of Peter, with the surname spelled the way it sounded to a Danish ear. In 1827 she was buried as Ane Cathrine Michelsdatter, daughter of Michael, after her father Johann Michael Märcher.
Leaving the heath
Leonhard Frank
My third great-grandfather, baptised Niels Christian Leonhard
Born
About 1802, Frederiks parish
Married
Marie Cathrine Hansdatter, 30 September 1837, Kragelund church
Work
Farmhand, then smallholder and day labourer
Died
1 April 1860, buried 9 April at Balle
Michael Frank's son left Alheden for the country south-east of it. In 1837 he was a farmhand at Charlottenlund when he married Marie Cathrine Hansdatter, born in 1814 at Funder in Kragelund parish. Ten years later they had a smallholding at Ellingehedehuse in the same parish.
A local diarist, Jens Peter Aaboe, noted the sale of their house:
Leonhard Franks Hus, Syd for Kragelund, med en ussel Bygning, uden Tørvejord og i ussel Drift, er i disse Dage solgt for 500 Rdl., og man siger, det er over 800 Rdl. værd.
Leonhard Frank's house south of Kragelund, a poor building with no peat land and poorly run, has just been sold for 500 rigsdaler, and people say it is worth over 800.
The census of 1860 finds the family at Hvinningdal in Balle parish, near Silkeborg: Leonhard Frank, 58, day labourer, born in Frederiks parish; his wife Marie Cathrine, 47; and three children, Jens, Ane Marie and Mette Marie Frank. A hundred years after the colonists came, the family name was still Frank. Leonhard died two months after the census.
Thrine Margrethe Leonhardsen Frank
My second great-grandmother
Born
11 January 1848, Kragelund, baptised 5 March
Married
Niels Jensen, labourer, born 1848 in Storring parish, on 25 June 1875 in Funder parish
Died
8 July 1926, Silkeborg, buried at Vestre Kirkegård
Thrine carried two names at once: Leonhardsen, daughter of Leonhard, in the Danish manner, and Frank, the colonists' surname. When she married Niels Jensen in 1875, the Frank name left this line of the family.
Jensine Kristine Jensen and Jens Julius Hansen
My great-grandparents
Jensine
Born 26 April 1880, Søby parish, baptised 1 August
Jens Julius
Born 20 January 1879, Søvind parish, baptised 14 April. Electrician.
Married
24 October 1908, Silkeborg church
When they married in Silkeborg in 1908, Jens Julius was working as a fitter in Odense. According to the family, he was born Koch or Kock Hansen and later dropped the middle name. Their children took the surname Hansen.
From Frank to Hansen
The Frank name lasted a century in Denmark. Danish patronymics, names formed from the father's first name, ran alongside it, and in this line it finally gave way through marriage.
FrankJohann Jeremias Thomas Frank, "a good old farmer", Frederikshede, 1760s
FrankMichael Frank, farmer and churchwarden, in the 1787 census
Leonhard Frankhis son, in the 1860 census with children Jens, Ane Marie and Mette Marie Frank
LeonhardsenThrine Margrethe Leonhardsen Frank, "daughter of Leonhard", born 1848
JensenJensine Kristine Jensen, daughter of Niels Jensen, born 1880
Hansenher husband Jens Julius Hansen, married 1908
The line of descent
Johann Jeremias Thomas Frank and Eva Magdalena BenzFrom Eschelbach, settled at Frederikshede (Havredal)
Peter Dürr and Apolonia SchmuckFrom the Darmstadt area, settled in Frederiks parish
Possibly through their sonJohan Jacob Dürr and Anna Cathrine Märcher
Johann Michael Frank and Cathrine Barbara DürrMarried about 1791
Leonhard Frank and Marie Cathrine HansdatterMarried 1837 in Kragelund
Thrine Margrethe Leonhardsen Frank and Niels JensenMarried 1875 in Funder parish
Jensine Kristine Jensen and Jens Julius HansenMy great-grandparents, married 1908 in Silkeborg
The tree on this site stops with my great-grandparents. Later generations are left out.
